


Birthdays

by entiegon



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: After season 11, Appendicitis, Birthday, Birthday Cake, Birthday Party, Birthday Presents, Caring for sick/injured, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Echo Zane mentioned, F/M, Gen, Hospital admittance, Implied Sexual Content, Jay panics, Jay plans birthday parties, Kai gets injured, Lloyd hates his birthday, Missions on birthdays, Noodle House party(s), One Shot Collection, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pixal mentioned, Possible AU, Repurposed nindroids, Sick Character, Special night planned, Surprise Party, Tags Contain Spoilers, follows after 'Revealing The Pain', ghost Cole mentioned, leads to another story i'm working on, minor PTSD struggles, protective older brother, rebuilt falcon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 44,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24697909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entiegon/pseuds/entiegon
Summary: It's the ninjas' birthdays... and this year, Jay has delegated himself in planning the birthday parties for the others. But he has to play things smart as Zane's never celebrated a birthday, Lloyd hates his, Cole and Kai hate the idea of joining their birthdays, and he wants to plan something special for Nya without getting killed by Kai.
Relationships: Nya/Jay Walker
Comments: 16
Kudos: 37
Collections: The_Newbie's Ninjago Fanfic Collection





	1. Zane: Day Of Creation

**Author's Note:**

> This series of one shots is based after season eleven and after my story 'Revealing The Pain' with the possibility of diverging from the main series as it has elements of another au story that I'm currently working on. Also, this will be based around the ninjas' birthdays, the order being in what I believe the birthday order is.
> 
> The first birthday belongs to Zane, though I will not mention when exactly I believe the day is (or any other birthday, to be honest). Just imagine Zane's birthday as being somewhere in the beginning of the year. Also, this was not intended to be as long as it is. It honestly just kind of grew as I wrote it. I just hope that I managed to get everyone in character considering the circumstances. Please enjoy.
> 
> Finally, I own nothing that belongs to Ninjago... which is pretty much everything.

Jay lay awake, listening to Cole’s snoring, wondering what sort of trouble the day was going to bring. It was four o’clock in the morning and it was Zane’s birthday. Well, day of creation, if you wanted to be technical. Jay was just glad that he had managed to get that titbit of information out of Dr Julien before the old inventor had finally passed on because he had been raking his brain over the date ever since he had met the master of ice. And those blueprints had done nothing to help in his search when he had looked.

The previous times they had celebrated Zane’s birthday, Jay remembered, hadn’t gone to plan.

They missed the first one completely because they hadn’t even realised it was his birthday. Instead they had gone on a team building exercise while Master Wu went to recruit a new member. Or was that during _his_ birthday? Either way, that new member turned out to be Kai.

The next birthday hadn’t been much happier. In fact, it was nearly a month after Zane had sacrificed himself to destroy the Overlord. It was also the only day the ninja had come together after the sacrifice. Jay heaved a sigh at the memory. Despite everyone being together around the statue of the Titanium Ninja, some nasty words had been said, especially between himself and Cole. They had dispersed quite quickly after Cole had left in a huff.

And, of course, the birthday after Zane had returned to them was spent fighting ghosts. So there really was no chance for a birthday party to be organised for him when the Preeminent was threatening to take over Ninjago. Everyone all vowed that the next year would be better and they’d give their robotic friend the birthday he deserved.

But by the time Zane’s next birthday came around, everyone had already split off to try and find Master Wu. So, the only one who could celebrate his birthday with him was Kai. And even then, as Jay later found out, Kai only took him out for dinner. Everyone else could only call and wish their favourite nindroid a happy birthday.

This year, Jay was determined to break the cycle. And, upon hearing his plans, the others had whole-heartedly agreed… that is until Kai got into that motorcycle crash nearly a week ago.

It was a miracle that he hadn’t suffered any serious injuries. The crash itself was terrifying and all the ninja had heard it when it happened. They had all decided to meet up in the park after a routine sweep of Ninjago City with Kai opting out to gather the decoration supplies as was planned. No one had expected the red-light runner to slam into Kai’s motorcycle on his way home.

Due to their proximity to the scene (the crash had happened on the other side of the park), the ninja had been the first to arrive followed closely by the police. And the screaming and cursing they heard as they neared the crash only made them go faster because they _knew_ that voice.

Nya was devastated when she saw what had happened to her brother. Jay had to hold her back while Cole and Zane rushed to Kai’s side, pulling the motorbike out from under him carefully and generally taking care of him and the driver of the car that had caused the accident. Lloyd took control of the situation.

But despite the disaster that the two vehicles had turned into, both Kai and the other driver had escaped relatively easily. The driver was fined for a number of things including running a red light and injuring another, but he was treated for a head wound and intoxication, and later jailed for a short time. Kai broke his leg in two places, dislocated his shoulder and grazed his head on the asphalt when he toppled over and his helmet fell loose, but other than that he was fine.

After spending a few days in hospital (which the fire ninja was not at all pleased about), the doctors finally let Kai out the afternoon before yesterday with strict orders of _no_ physical activity for the next eight weeks and enough pain killers to do him for at least a week. So now he just moped about with a cast on his leg and crutches at his side. And Zane seemed to be breathing down his neck every minute of the day just to make sure he was following doctor’s orders.

So, while Cole had somehow managed to hide the party decorations from Zane when he took them from the crash site on Kai’s orders, Jay had to figure out who was going to take Kai’s job of putting the decorations up. And because Kai was no longer allowed to touch the decorations, he had been assigned to keeping Zane away from the party set up.

That is, he had been assigned the job in Jay’s head. Kai still didn’t know what he was doing any more.

But there was another problem. Master Wu had sent his ninja down south towards the Straflodge Ranges, a massive mountain range at the bottom of the island continent, in search of signs of ‘returned elements’ in some remote farming village, whatever that meant. And Kai, being Kai, had managed to sneak onto the _Destiny’s Bounty_ despite being told by everyone (including his girlfriend) that he needed to stay home and rest.

The fire in Zane’s eyes when he discovered Kai hiding in the training room of the ship after take off was enough to rival that of Kai’s own flames, he was that furious with the fire ninja. So it was no surprise that Kai had orders to remain on and only travel to certain areas of the ship. And that meant that there were limited areas for Kai to be able to do his unknown job and keep Zane distracted while everyone else set up for the party.

Jay couldn’t stop the groan that left his mouth. Just like always, this was turning into another shamble just like every other day of creation before this.

No longer able to sleep, Jay rolled out of bed and made his way over to the desk. He pulled out the folder he had hidden in the bottom draw and, after turning on the lamp, got to work trying to figure out how the day was going to plan out.

According to his original list, he was in charge of games, Cole was in charge of the cake and music, Lloyd was in charge of getting the rest of the food organised, Nya in charge of presents, and Kai was in charge of decorations. That list had to change. Kai could no longer do decorations due to his injury, meaning he now had to keep Zane from figuring out what was going on. And, come to think of it, putting Cole in charge of the cake wasn’t the greatest idea.

“ Okay, maybe Cole could do decorations instead of Kai.” He muttered to himself, careful not to wake the others up. He was just grateful that Zane was currently guiding the ship to its next destination. “ And give Lloyd the cake to do. That would make more sense, actually, that way all the food was together. Plus, there’d be less chance of the cake burning.”

Somehow, even in sleep, Cole knew when someone was talking about cake.

“ Lemon chiffon cake in fridge. Zane’s favourite.” The earth master mumbled before falling deeper into his dreams.

Okay, when had Cole put a cake in the fridge of the _Destiny’s Bounty?_ Scratch that, when had Cole even made (or rather bought) a cake? Jay was pretty sure that there was no cake box in the fridge, and they had been gone for… well, this would be their second day in the air. So, what had he missed? Because he had clearly missed something between the time he had talked with the others two weeks ago and now.

Another groan managed to escape the lightning master. If what he was hearing from the still sleeping cake lover of the team, then Cole somehow had the cake organised. That meant that the newly made change in the ‘birthday roster’ was irrelevant. Which, in turn, meant that Cole would not be doing decorations.

Maybe Nya could… no, she’d probably be working on the present until it was party time. Kai would have to keep Zane out of the kitchen so Lloyd could work in there, because, thanks to Zane’s teachings, the boy was getting to be a decent cook himself. That left decorations to either him or Cole.

Oh man, why did Master Wu have to throw a spanner in the works and send the ninja on some weird mission that none of them knew how to even complete let alone understand. If they had just stayed at the monastery, then Pixal and Echo would be able to help with sorting out the party details. Pixal could have done decorations, while Echo distracted Zane and Kai took over music from Cole so that he wasn’t excluded because of his injuries. Not to mention, every one of Zane’s family would be present.

Yep. This was turning into a mess before Jay’s eyes. And Zane’s Day of Creation was today! With that thought, Jay’s head hit the desk. This celebration planning was turning out to be the worst idea he had ever had.

He didn’t realise he’d drifted back to sleep until he was woken up by a gentle shake of his shoulder and the gentle call of his name.

“ Jay. Jay, wake up. Breakfast is ready.”

Jay’s eyes snapped open and he bolted up right at the call. Looking around, he noticed Nya standing by his side, pulling her hand back in an attempt to prove that she was no threat to him. That was okay. It meant that Zane hadn’t seen the list. Well… he hoped Zane hadn’t seen the list. The surprise would have been ruined if he had.

“ You alright, Jay?” Nya asked, breaking the boy from his thoughts.

“ Yeah. Just… Just fell asleep trying to work things out.” Jay replied.

“ Like what?”

“ Stuff for the… you know what that’s happening today. Especially because Kai can’t do décor. He’s now got a new job, too, just so you know. I realised this last night. And then there’s the matter of who’s going to do Kai’s old job. And this is turning into a mess.”

Jay tried to be evasive with what was happening, because you could never be too careful with a nindroid on board. Thank goodness Nya understood what he was trying to get at. He would have been in trouble if she hadn’t. But she merely smiled softly at him as she waited until he was finished before she spoke again.

“ Maybe we could have a secret meeting without Zane in attendance, understand where everything is or should be with the others before hitting major panic stations.” She suggested. “ Follow up, is what I’m saying.”

“ In other words, have the meeting we should have had yesterday. But what if Zane hears us? What if he catches on to what we’re doing? One wrong move and it could blow everything!”

“ We’ll just make sure he’s flying the _Bounty_ before we have the meeting. Now come on, before Lloyd or Cole come in here looking for us. Lloyd’s already commandeered the kitchen for the day.”

“ Let me get dressed first.”

With a nod, Nya left the room. Still, Jay made sure that he was once more alone in the room before putting away his birthday plans. Then he quickly got himself dressed and hurried out to the kitchen-dining area where Lloyd was just finishing serving him up a plate of blueberry and banana pancakes. He even wished Zane a ‘happy birthday’ in a small attempt at throwing off the ice ninja in case he had seen the party plans.

Other than that, breakfast was an ordinary affair. The other ninja passed of Jay’s slight panic as nerves for the possible danger that the mission could bring, and Zane seemed to buy their excuse. But Kai, Cole and Lloyd all knew the true reason to the panic… even if they weren’t exactly sure what had gone wrong. The reason for this was because all three of them had apparently tried to wake Jay before Nya had tried. In turn this led to them seeing the party plans lying on the table underneath Jay’s head.

Thankfully they didn’t say anything about it until after they had all gathered in the bedroom with Zane taking over flying duties once more for Nya.

“ Okay, Jay, what’s going on?” Kai asked, as subtle as ever, as he lay on his bed with a pillow under his broken leg.

Jay took a breath as he took out his birthday plans. But instead of answering Kai’s question or even showing the plans to the others, he hugged the pages to his chest in an attempt to hide them. He even looked around the room for any bugs that may have been planted, just in case Zane decided he needed to spy on his teammates… not that he didn’t trust his friend. He was just… clearly paranoid.

“ We’re safe here, right?” he asked, his paranoia showing through his words. “ Zane’s not going to hear us?”

“ Everything’s fine, Jay.” Nya soothed. “ I told Zane that if he needed any of us, to just call for us on the speakers. He’s not going to come in here.”

“ Okay.” Still, Jay sat himself as close to Kai’s bed as he dared while still being able to hide from the wrath of the fire master should it appear. “ So, as you know, today is the day Zane was turned on for the first time. His day of creation, or to put it simply, his birthday. And we’ve been planning to give him a proper birthday since we met him, or at least, I have. But everything has been getting in the way. First ignorance, then the Overlord, then ghosts and, well, you get the idea. And this time, just going out for dinner is not going to cut it because the six of us are together again. We’ll just have to make sure next year’s party is better because this year’s birthday is turning into a mess just like every other birthday Zane’s had with us!”

“ Woah, woah, woah. What do you mean it’s turning into a mess?” Cole asked, sharing a concerned look with everyone in the room.

“ You should know why it’s a mess!” Jay was clearly panicking hard about this and the confused looks he was getting only seemed to worsen that panic. “ Ugh! Master Wu just had to send us away from the monastery where we were going to hold the surprise party, both Zane’s girlfriend and his brother are back at said monastery with Wu and Misako and have probably already told everyone that the party was cancelled due to a mission coming up, Kai’s gone and gotten himself caught up in a motor accident and then disobeyed direct orders to stay at home, not to mention him having a broken leg has meant that he can’t do the decorating anymore which means you’re now going to have to distract Zane and make sure he stays away from wherever we set up the party, which, by the way, I haven’t figured out yet because it would have to be somewhere where Kai can easily get to. That leaves the decorating job to be given to someone else and it can’t be Nya because she’s working on the present and it can’t be Lloyd because he’s in the kitchen getting the food and drinks organised, so it would have to be me or Cole, but Cole’s in charge of music and the cake, which I’m really hoping is not burnt to a crisp or tastes like burnt socks but then Cole was talking in his sleep about having Zane’s favourite cake in the fridge but I haven’t seen any cake boxes in the fridge and when did you even get a cake, Cole? Not to mention…”

“ Jay!” The sound of Cole’s yell snapped the lightning master from his panic in an instant. “ Jay, breathe. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“ But…”

“ Nope. No more panic.” Kai stated, grabbing his other pillow and whacking Jay over the head with it before returning it to its place behind his own head. “ We’ve been planning this thing for weeks. Even though things may not be going to plan at the moment, everything is under control.”

“ Kai’s right.” Lloyd added. “ Remember when Cole and I went on a quick scout around the city before we left?”

Jay nodded, not trusting himself to speak lest he be hit with something harder than a pillow, like one of Kai’s crutches which were by the older boy’s head.

“ We were getting the food and the cake.”

“ And a minifridge.” Cole added.

“ A minifridge?” Jay had to ask.

“ How else was I supposed to keep the cake cool?”

“ Then where’s the fridge?”

This time the answer came from Kai. “ It’s in the training room.”

“ How do you know that?” Jay almost wheeled on the fire ninja.

“ I put it there. Why do you think I was hiding there?”

“ Um… because you wanted to come on the mission, too?”

“ Okay, I’ll give you that one. But Cole helped me sneak on board and into the training room about an hour before we took off. And because he helped me, I had to help him by plugging in the fridge and loading it up with not only the cake, but also the drinks and some of the food that Lloyd was dealing with.”

“ Only the cold stuff, though.” Lloyd admitted.

Wait. That would mean… Jay turned to face Lloyd, not believing that their leader, who usually scolded them whenever they did something they weren’t supposed to, had willingly let Kai sneak onto the _Destiny’s Bounty._ Heck, he knew that Kai and Lloyd were closer than the rest of them when it came to an almost sibling-like bond, but he would never believe that the Green Ninja would willingly help his older brother in whatever schemes he was planning… at least, not these days, anyway.

It was the disbelieving look that Jay was giving him that made Lloyd rub at his right arm subconsciously the way he usually did when he was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

“ So, I knew that Kai was sneaking onto the _Bounty.”_ He tried to defend himself. “ But they both cornered me. It probably didn’t help that I was also heading that way with the food for the party. So, Cole carried the fridge and we both kept an eye on Kai as we helped him on board.”

“ So the food’s sorted and so’s the drinks and cake.” Cole reassured his friend. “ Nothing to worry about.”

Nya could only shake her head at what she was hearing.

“ Of course, Kai managed to convince both Cole and Lloyd into getting him on the _Bounty.”_ She muttered to herself before speaking up so the boys could hear her more clearly. “ But I’m going to add in to the reassurances and say that the present is operational. There’s only one thing left to do and I’m going to let Zane do that.”

This time, it was Kai’s turn to be confused. “ Does this have anything to do with the bird cage I found in the spare weapons closet in the training room while I was down there?”

The smile on Nya’s face clearly told all in the room that, yes, it had something to do with the aforementioned bird cage. But even with that comforting smile present, Jay still wasn’t able to calm his mind of its panic. After all, Nya did say there was one thing left to do. What if that one thing was something major and they only had hours or even minutes left to finish it?

Apparently, his panic was showing again, though, because this time Nya took Kai’s pillow from under his head and whacked Jay over the head with it. And this time, Jay wasn’t the only one who looked betrayed at the situation. Kai also sported a similar look after yanking back his pillow from his sister’s grasp.

“ Like Kai said earlier; no more panic.” Nya stated with a smirk.

“ You didn’t have to hit me on the head with the pillow.” Jay protested.

“ Eh, it just felt right.”

“ Sister after my own heart.” Kai copied his sister’s smirk. “ Though she could have used her own pillow.”

Nya chose to ignore her brother’s comment in favour of lessening Jay’s fears. “ All that has to be done with the present is to turn it on. All diagnostics and functions are running smoothly and at their maximum levels. Not to mention, I’ve managed to remotely link it to Zane. Admittedly, without his knowing, but it would be almost exactly like it was in the past.”

“ Wait.” Cole asked, his confusion being shared by both Lloyd and Kai. “ What is Zane’s present?”

Jay looked around at his brothers, a smile finally managing to creep onto his face as he took in their confused expressions. He wanted so badly to tell them what it was that he was on the verge of jumping up and down on the spot. But it was Nya and Pixal who had been the main engineers in the project (he only helped with wiring and other small tasks when asked), so he knew he didn’t have much of a say in revealing the surprise.

“ Go on, Jay. You can tell them.”

It was all the confirmation he needed from his girlfriend for him to lean into the circle and whisper, almost conspiratorially, “ We’ve rebuilt the Falcon.”

“ What? Really? That’s awesome!” Cole exclaimed, a massive smile planted on his face as he spoke.

“ Zane is going to love it.” Kai agreed, nodding his head in approval.

“ I wondered what happened to the little guy after that… incident.” Lloyd admitted.

After that revelation, things seemed to go more smoothly. Lloyd explained that all he needed to do in the kitchen was warm up the mini sausages and the party pies and sort out the fruit platters and the chip bowls and he would be done. Cole, too, just needed a little help with setting up the sound system, but other than that he was sorted as well.

Then there was Jay and his choice of games. Or rather the fact that he had yet to choose the games from the list he had written throughout the course of the party planning. At least, the master of lightning was more willing to show that list than he was showing the ‘failed’ party plans that he had been trying to work on during the night.

After each one of the members of the gathered team had read through the list, Cole was all up for tying donuts to the ceiling of wherever they planned on hosting the party or even playing some food balance game that hadn’t originally been on the list. Sadly, both were turned down because no one had bothered to get any donuts before they had left and making the brownies or biscuits needed for the balancing game would take too much time. And, currently, time was something they didn’t have much of.

Lloyd came up with an alternative, though. What if they balanced balloons on their foreheads instead of food? Kai seconded the idea saying that he had bought a lot of balloons and streamers for the decorations (only because they were planning on covering the entire monastery in them). Therefore, a few balloons wouldn’t be missed.

This led to Jay stating that he was planning on setting up a truth or dare type game with any extra balloons that weren’t used for decoration. Though he refrained from actually telling them what the game was. Even so, the boys were all for a game of truth or dare. Nya, however, wasn’t too keen. Unfortunately for her, the boys overruled her. Jay’s balloon truth or dare game was a go ahead… though he did promise his girlfriend that they were only going to play one type of truth or dare game this party.

But with Kai not being able to walk very well, there were a lot of games on the list that he couldn’t join in on. And that included the team favourite, Twister. Contrary to popular belief, the fire ninja didn’t mind a good game of Twister. And with the competitive rivalry he had with Cole, he liked to prove he was more flexible than the master of earth. Of course, this was despite the fact that one had to be flexible in order to be a dancer, like Cole had once been.

In the end, after a good fifteen minutes of discussion, it was decided that they would play Jay’s truth or dare game, Lloyd’s balloon balance suggestion, some ‘battle of the oranges’ game where you had to knock your opponent’s orange off a spoon, Twister (because even though Kai couldn’t play, he’d still like to see Cole fail), and surprisingly a game of ‘would you rather’. The other option was charades (courtesy of Jay), but no one wanted to play that game.

Unfortunately, there was still the matter of figuring out where they were going to host the party and who was going to decorate the room. Cole suggested the training room purely and simply because that was where the minifridge was. That idea was vetoed by Kai, who claimed there was no place for him to sit comfortably in the room. In reality, it was because he was banned from the room entirely.

The kitchen was out too, despite Cole trying to convince everyone it was a good idea. Cue more teasing about the earth ninja’s eating habits. But Lloyd had had a fair point when he declined the idea; not only did he not want the pressure of everyone watching him making their food, but there was the likely chance that Zane would be tempted to help with or even take over kitchen duties. And that was something no one wanted.

In the end, they decided on sticking with the traditional loungeroom setting. And the group only just managed to figure that out when Zane called over the speakers that they were nearing their next destination; a small village known as Spirithaven. Reaching Spirithaven meant that they were halfway to the base of the Straflodge Ranges… and their true destination of Ashenbrine.

It also meant that they only had that afternoon to have Zane’s birthday party.

True, they had spent about half an hour on the pre-party meeting. But if Zane had been correct in his timing (and he was never usually wrong), then lunch time was within another half-hour. This could only be figured out by the fact that the titanium ninja himself had calculated that they would arrive near Spirithaven in time for lunch.

Not to mention, when Nya had found Zane, he was coming inside after finishing his morning meditation… which took hours. And when Zane went into meditation, you can expect hours to go by if there was no major problem. And there had not been any major problem (at least for the ice master to worry about), so he could spend all the time he wanted. No one even knew where he had gone to do his meditating. He just seemed to disappear about an hour after breakfast.

So, they didn’t have much time to set up the loungeroom for the party.

“ Okay, guys.” Kai stated as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and grabbed his crutches ready to move. “ You have maximum half an hour to get everything ready. Zane and I are going to get lunch.”

“ What?” Jay asked, dodging his brother’s legs and crutches before jumping to his own feet.

“ You need a distraction, don’t you?”

“ Well, yeah.”

“ I’m giving you one. So you better sort out who’s doing what fast because I have no idea how I’m going to get Zane to stay in the village for an extended amount of time.”

With that said, Kai was out of the bedroom and heading to the bridge in search of the birthday nindroid. Lloyd, realising what that meant, was quick to follow, heading back towards the kitchen to get the food ready. At least both Cole and Nya stayed a few more minutes to help with writing up some dares for the truth or dare game before they had to leave to start setting up as well. But it wasn’t long before Jay was the only ninja in the bedroom… and he knew he didn’t have long to get the games sorted before the party was to start.

It took almost ten minutes, but Jay was able to write down enough dares to fill twenty-four balloons… enough for four rounds of his ‘Pop-A-Dare’ game. And, if he was being honest with himself, he couldn’t help the smirk that formed on his face as he finished writing the final dare. After all, there would be no ‘truths’ in this game. And the others had no clue. He was just surprised that he had managed to keep that a surprise when he was explaining his idea to the others.

A few seconds after he had finished, Cole walked into the room, a packet of balloons in his hand.

“ What’s got you grinning like a Cheshire cat?” the Earth Elemental asked once he saw the look on his friend’s face. Then he remembered what Jay had been doing for the past ten minutes. “ Wait. What are you planning?”

“ Well, I am planning a birthday party, if that’s what you mean.” Jay replied innocently.

“ I meant besides the party.”

“ Nothing much. Besides, you guys all agreed to it anyway, so it’s not like I’m planning anything bad.”

“ What?”

“ Never mind. Are those the balloons for the games?” the lightning master asked, pointing to the pack of balloons.

“ Yep.” Cole replied, tossing the packet to the blue ninja who caught it with ease. “ Music setup was easy, so Nya and I started getting the lounge room ready for the party.”

“ Thank you.”

“ No problem. Many hands make light work, after all.”

“ You’ve been hanging around Wu for way too long, Cole.”

Cole merely laughed as he returned to the lounge room. There were other balloons that needed to be blown up waiting for him. And, unless there was a wind elemental on the ship (which there wasn’t), those balloons weren’t going to blow themselves up.

Jay watched him leave before turning his attention to the packet of balloons in his hand, noting that there was string included. That was good. He might be able to use that when setting up the game. First things first, though, he had to blow the balloons up with the dares inside them. Well… once he got the dares inside them, that is.

Time to get back to work.

It took a while, but somehow he managed to roll up all the dares and stuff them into the balloons before starting the task of blowing up the ‘dare’ balloons. Of course, while he was blowing up balloons, his mind started to wander, and he started questioning why no one had decided to check in on him. Then again, everyone else was too busy with their own things to help out with the games. After all, half an hour was not enough time for four people to completely set up a lounge room for a surprise party _and_ organise the games _and_ get the food and drinks ready.

Not to mention, once he was done, he still had a bit to do. He had to somehow mark the ‘Pop-A-Dare’ balloons so that the others knew what balloons were part of the game (and this was aside from blowing them up), he had to make sure he had enough balloons for the balance game as well, he had to find the oranges and the spoons big enough to hold the oranges for the ‘battle’, and he had to find the ‘Twister’ game. Not to mention he had to figure out how he was going to set up the ‘Dare’ game.

At least ‘Would you Rather’ required nothing more than one’s brain to play, so that was easy.

‘Dare’ balloons blown up (finally!), Jay commandeered one of Cole’s art marker pens. His plan: mark those balloons with something so that everyone knew which balloons were part of the game. His problem: he was running out of time and had no idea what to mark the balloons with. Not to mention he had no idea how long Kai could keep Zane away from the _Bounty_ for. So he had to get all the balloons that were littering the bedroom floor marked and move onto the next thing quickly.

If only he knew what to mark them with. A lightning bolt? Nah. This party was Zane’s, not his. A snowflake? Fitting, but also time consuming. Therefore, not an option. A star? Well, Zane was a star. But he needed to move quickly, and his stars took a little longer to do than other people’s stars.

That’s when it came to him. Zane made everyone smile. With his cooking, his ice sculptures and, most importantly, when he returned to them after his death. It was the perfect thing to mark the balloons with. A smiley face. Granted, a rather simple, three lined smiley face, but a smiley face, nonetheless. So he quickly got to work, a smile on his own face.

But, even when all twenty-four balloons sported smiley faces, Jay knew his job wasn’t finished. He still had six more balloons to blow up for the balancing competition. And the ‘Twister’ game to find… and figure out a way to set up the ‘Dare’ game. And get the stuff for the ‘Battle of the Oranges’. Yeah, he really hoped Kai would take his sweet time in the village because Jay was _running_ out of time.

He was just starting to blow up the last of the balloons from the packet (it was just luck that the packet held thirty balloons) when Cole and Nya opened the bedroom door.

“ Okay, Jay, what do you need help with?” Nya asked, scaring Jay into letting the balloon he had in his hand go.

Said balloon had been just about ready to be tied off. So, it was no surprise when it went flying around the room, the air it had once contained leaking out of it. To be fair, Jay did try to catch the runaway balloon. But his efforts proved futile when the balloon flopped into Cole’s face with a final squelch before landing in his awaiting hands. It probably didn’t help that all that balloon blowing had started to make Jay a little light-headed, which was evident in his futile movements to catch the runaway balloon.

“ That… is a lot of balloons.” Was all the Earth elemental could say once the balloon was off his face and Jay had managed to steady himself.

“ You alright, Jay?” Nya asked, concern in her voice.

“ Yeah… just… give me a minute. Thirty balloons equals a lot of puff for one person.” Jay replied, taking a few deep breaths as he spoke.

“ Why didn’t you call for us earlier?” Cole asked, handing his friend back the balloon.

“ You were all busy.”

“ I’m sure one of us would have tried to find a way to get here and help, Jay.” Nya almost sighed.

“ It’s done now, so, no need to worry.” Jay gave them what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

“ Are you sure we need all of these balloons, though?” Cole was still looking at the balloons littering the bedroom floor.

“ The balloons with smiley faces are for the dare game. Four balloons for each one of us. Four rounds. The other balloons, including the one I was almost finished with, are for that balance game that Lloyd suggested. Again, there’s one for each of us.”

Both Nya and Cole still looked a little sceptical, but they wisely said nothing. There were times when Jay would absolutely fight for something, regardless of anything. In that sense, his stubbornness fit right in with the rest of the rather stubborn ninja family that they had all created. So, it came to reason that they had learnt when to pick their battles.

And the number of balloons used in party games was definitely one of those battles where you didn’t want to fight Jay. Especially when there wasn’t a lot of time left before Kai and Zane made it back onto the _Destiny’s Bounty._

“ Okay. What do you need help with _now_? Where are you up to?” Nya asked, turning her attention to the blue ninja who was clearly judging whether he had time to quickly blow up the last balloon or if he should still be talking.

“ I’ve just got this one balloon to finish blowing up, then that will be that done. Though I’m not sure if I should mark these balloons as well. If I do, they’ll be marked with initials. Anyway, I still have to figure out how I’m going to set up the ‘dare’ game. I’m guessing my best bet would be to put them on some kind of board, but idiot me didn’t think ahead, so I have no idea what we can use for that. But I also have to sort out the stuff for that orange battle game and find where ‘Twister’ is hiding. It’s a good thing ‘Would You Rather’ requires the brain or else I think I’d be panicking.” The lightning ninja explained.

His two companions made sure to keep their thoughts to themselves regarding what they thought about Jay’s clearly slightly panicked explanation.

It was Nya who broke the silence once more. “ Tell you what, I’ll hunt around for the ‘Twister’ game while you finish off the last balloon and go get the things you need for the orange battle game. Cole, you can go in search of a board or something to put these marked balloons onto. Maybe try the spare room, if not the training room. And no sneaking any food.”

“ That sounds fair. Thank you.” Jay smiled with a nod, even as Cole gained a slight look of disappointment on his face at the warning Nya was giving him.

“ Hey, it’s what friends are for.” The earth master quickly hid his disappointment with a massive grin on his face equal to the one on his friend’s. “ Just one thing, though. Why are you calling it the ‘Dare’ game?”

“ Eh-heh…”

Jay refused to explain his reasons about the name. No matter what Nya and Cole did or said to try and get him to talk. All he told them was that he was going to explain the game when it was time to play the game, not beforehand. And, as expected, it frustrated the others. But there was nothing they could do. So they went about their assigned jobs with Nya still trying to get information out of her boyfriend while she searched for the ‘Twister’ game.

All the while, the threat of Zane arriving home before everything was ready pressed on their minds.

Jay wasn’t sure what Cole would find to use for the dare balloons, but at that moment in time, as he tied the last balloon from the packet and let it float along the floor with its brethren, he was hoping he’d be able to find some oranges in the kitchen. Last he checked, there were at least four oranges in the fruit bowl. Hopefully Lloyd hadn’t decided to use them for any of the food prep.

Making his way into the kitchen, he found Lloyd just taking something out of the oven. As he got closer to the counter, he realised it was the party pies that Lloyd had been talking about. And, boy, did they smell good. Jay was almost tempted to steal one right there and then. There were two things that stopped him, though. Firstly, they had just come out of the oven and so were extremely hot. Secondly, he had oranges to find… and spoons, too, if he was being honest.

There was just one small problem. He couldn’t find the oranges that had been in the fruit bowl.

“ Hey, Lloyd.” He called once the younger ninja no longer had a tray of hot food in his hands, “ You haven’t seen the oranges, have you?”

“ Oranges?” Lloyd asked, almost freezing in place with his back turned to the lightning ninja.

“ Yeah. We need oranges for the ‘orange battle’ game, remember?”

Without turning around, Lloyd tried to sneak a glance towards the fridge, though he still got the feeling that Jay had noticed.

“ I know where they are.” He practically whispered as he attempted to hide his fear. “ You might not like it, though.”

Dread ran cold down Jay’s back.

“ Please tell me you didn’t use them for anything.”

“ Um…” Lloyd finally turned around, a sorrowful look on his face.

Instantly, Jay knew that the oranges had been sacrificed to the food deities. They had been unintentionally put on the party menu instead of on the games list. And despite the look on the green ninja’s face claiming that it had clearly been a spur of the moment decision, Jay could still feel himself slipping into a panic about it all.

“ Okay, okay.” The lightning ninja managed to breathe out, trying to calm himself. “ Let’s not panic here. Let’s just… take a few breaths, a few deep ones, and try to find something similar to an orange. Something that’s round, a decent size, a decent weight, and can fit on a dessert spoon. We can do this. We can still do this.”

As he muttered to himself, Jay began raiding the kitchen in search for suitable orange replacements. He even got Lloyd to help with his search. In their search, Lloyd held up an apple, but it was declined due to its shape, also because it was top heavy and kept falling over. The pear Jay found was equally discarded, not just because of its shape, but also because there was only one. Lloyd even pulled out a tomato, but it was too soft for what they needed, and he ended up putting it back before even showing Jay.

Unfortunately, after a few precious moments of hunting, Jay threw his arms up in defeat. Other than the apple and the tomato, nothing came close to replacing an orange. The only thing Lloyd could do was whip out his phone and send a hurried text to Kai explaining what had happened in as few words as possible. All the while, he hoped that they weren’t too late.

Turns out, Lloyd’s text got through to the fire ninja just in time. Kai had gotten it just as they were passing the town fruit vendor, thus giving those on the _Bounty_ a few more minutes to get everything sorted. And with Jay now panicking about how much of a disaster this day was turning out to be, those precious minutes were welcomed with open arms.

When Cole walked into the kitchen, a few minutes after the message had been sent, in his search for Jay, he found Lloyd trying to calm their blue clad teammate down from his panic. Though he was confused about why the younger teen was apologising a lot. It was thanks to Jay screaming out an accusation that the earth master discovered the problem. And he knew, just from that, that he needed to act quickly before they lost Jay completely.

The only thing he could think about doing was remove Jay from the source of the problem and try and get him to focus on something else. So, with human shaped wooden dummy underarm, Cole walked Jay out of the kitchen and back to the bedroom where he somehow managed to get his best friend to focus on finishing his ‘dare’ game. And when Nya questioned why Jay was in such a panic, the only thing Cole could do was shake his head, a clear indication not to ask.

Somehow, Jay’s not entirely sure how, but somehow things seemed to fit into place. With Cole helping him set up the ‘dare’ game, he was able to forget about the orange incident for a few minutes while they finished getting the party organised. And, once she had found the ‘Twister’ game, Nya had gone off to help Lloyd with the food. It took no time at all after what happened in the kitchen before they were all waiting for Zane and Kai in the lounge room.

In fact, they were that close to the time that they only had to wait a few minutes before Kai and Zane walked into the _Destiny’s Bounty_. Jay didn’t know how he managed to keep himself quiet during those few minutes, either. They were all just lucky that Kai had managed to send a text to the team on the _Bounty_ alerting them of where they were.

“ We’re home!” Kai called out once he and Zane were through the door.

It was an attempt to keep the ice ninja from being suspicious, but, being who he was, it still had Zane questioning things. And the others could tell this just from how he was questioning Kai taking him out for a walk through town and obviously trying to keep him out of the kitchen. Then again, there was very little that seemed to pass by the nindroid without his knowing. Jay just hoped, as he tried to keep himself quiet, that Zane hadn’t caught onto his plans.

“ Kai, where are the others?” the demand was clear in Zane’s voice as he and the fire ninja made their slow way to where the others were hiding in the lounge room.

“ What do you mean?” you could almost hear the worry in Kai’s voice at being discovered. “ I’ve been out with you. I wouldn’t know where they were or what they were doing.”

“ Then why is it so quiet?”

“ No idea. Maybe Jay lost his marbles again and the others had to knock him out just to get some of their own sanity back.”

Jay made a mental note to get Kai back for that little comment. Beside him, the other three ninja noted how close Kai had come to summing up what had happened in the _Destiny’s Bounty_ a few minutes before their return.

“ Why do I get the feeling you are not talking about the container of marbles that Jay has in the back of the third draw under his bed, and are, in fact, referring to that time in the First Realm when Jay went insane after our arrival into the realm.” Zane continued, not realising that his words had made the lightning ninja cringe at the memory. “ Also, keep in mind that we agreed to never speak of that moment again.”

“ I wasn’t directly suggesting that, Zane. We all know Jay’s a little nuts anyway. There are a number of times where he’s had major meltdowns. I was only suggesting, Jay being who he is, he probably had another one of those meltdowns.”

Apparently, Kai was determined to start digging his own grave to save the lightning master the trouble. Thanks to the slight tingle of electricity in the air, it was clear that Jay was trying very hard not to ruin the surprise and leap out of hiding just to strangle the fire user’s neck. And being so close to Jay during this literally made the other’s worry. Nya ended up having to place a gentle hand on her boyfriend’s arm to try and help him calm down.

It took a few deep breaths, but Jay was able to return the smile to his face. Though, in the back of his head, he was silently wondering what he was going to do to Kai for everything that he was hearing. Zane was excused due to it being his birthday. But after managing to convince himself that he could kill Kai anytime after midnight (not that he was really going to), Jay noticed Zane’s shadow emerge in the doorway.

This was it. It was in these crucial last seconds before Zane flipped on the light switch that Jay hoped everything, all his planning, all his panicking, was going to blossom into the most amazing birthday Zane had ever had. It was now that Jay prayed that everything turned out to be the best they could have and that nothing (else) was going to go wrong that day. The excitement was practically building within him as he waited, also hoping Zane didn’t freeze anyone in his surprise.

Then again, Zane was a nindroid. His scanners had probably already told him that they were hiding in the middle of the dark lounge room possibly facing the doorway. Yeah, Jay probably should have thought about that while he was planning out this surprise party. Too late now, he supposed.

In that last second, as Kai’s silhouette appeared next to the birthday nindroid’s, Zane flicked the switch with an audible click. Light bathed the lounge room, showing off the food, games, decorations and, most importantly, the four ninja standing in the middle of the room.

“ Surprise!” those very ninja called a second or two later.

“ What’s this?” Zane asked, a look of shock on his face.

Kai clapped a hand on the ice ninja’s shoulder “ Happy birthday, Zane.”

“ You did all this… for me?”

This time it was Cole’s turn to clasp his hand on Jay’s shoulder, adding a little good-natured shake as he spoke. “ It was all Jay’s idea.”

And that’s when everything seemed to tumble out of Jay’s mouth.

“ Well, we’ve known you for quite a while now and I’ve noticed that you haven’t really been able to celebrate the day you were born, well, in your case, the day you were created, so I started wondering when that day was and finally managed to ask your father not long before he passed, but I know he’s here with us now, and that’s when I realised we missed your first birthday with us. The next birthday turned out to be a sad day because you had already sacrificed yourself for us by that time, then we were off fighting ghosts on the next birthday, so we couldn’t really do anything then. So I planned on making the next birthday the best, but it turned out to be a bust instead because we were all split up all over Ninjago and Kai ended up taking you out for your birthday without the rest of us. After that, I was determined we weren’t going to miss this birthday, but we almost did thanks to Master Wu sending us on this mission, but I hope I still managed to pull this off and…”

“ Thank you, Jay.” Zane finally managed to get in, going over to the blue ninja and wrapping his arms around him. “ This is the best birthday already.”

“ R-r-really?”

“ Really, Jay. Thank you. All of you.”

Jay could only smile as Zane pulled away from him and turned to the others around them, a smile of his own spreading across his awed features.

“ Shall we get this party started, then?” Cole asked, already making his way over to the sound system.

“ Most definitely.” Zane agreed with a slight nod of his head.

Cole, not needing to be told twice, quickly finished his route and turned on the music player he had plugged in and waiting. In a matter of seconds, the team’s all-round favourite song was being belted out of the speakers that were placed all around the room. Only, with how loud Cole had the music, it was a wonder anyone was able to still think. Any passers-by would definitely be able to tell that there was some sort of party happening aboard the flying ship.

And yet, no one on board seemed to care. They were enjoying themselves too much to want to care. Lloyd had done an amazing job with the food (though Jay seemed to be avoiding the fruit salad after having seen orange pieces mixed through it). And they all wanted to know what Spirithaven was like, choosing that time to talk with Zane and Kai about it. Then there was the fact that Zane also wanted to know how they had all managed to keep the party a surprise from him.

Kai even commandeered the couch to put his leg up once he had told Jay of the fresh oranges sitting on the dining table waiting for him. Of course, no one seemed to care. The fire elemental needed to be off his foot, not to mention going for a thirty-minute walk around town this close after hospital release had really taken it out of him.

Still, Lloyd tried to joke with him about not sharing the couch. In reply, the green ninja got shooed away with one of Kai’s crutches after faking going to sit on his brother’s stomach.

No one noticed when Jay slipped out of the lounge room and headed towards the kitchen. Sure enough, as he entered the room, there were six oranges sitting in a bag on the dining table. Perfect for the game. Grabbing the two most identical oranges, the blue ninja went to the cutlery draw and pulled out six dessert spoons. But he stopped and looked down at the game components in his hand when a thought crossed his mind. What was going to be the prize for winning the game?

From that question alone, Jay realised he hadn’t quite thought the games through. There had to be something to play for, after all. A prize to win. Then again, would all the games require prizes? Zane would just want everyone to have fun and have everyone be winners. Cole and Kai, especially Kai, usually want some sort of goal, though. Then again, as the blue ninja continued to think things through, out of the four games that he had planned, only the ‘battle of the oranges’ really needed a prize of some sort.

‘Pop-a-Dare’ was really just for fun. Everyone could joke around with how stupid everyone else looked or acted. It wasn’t really a game that you could have a winner for. And ‘Would You Rather’ was much the same. It was a good way to get to know the others some more, put forth any questions that have built up over the years, and just connect or strengthen any bonds. Yeah, you could ask some pretty strange things, as well, but with this family, strange is normal. Plus, stupidity makes things feel less like an interrogation.

Then there was ‘Twister’, another game that didn’t really require any prizes. It was really just a fun game that everyone liked. Yeah, it was a last man standing type of game, but the goal was to not fall over or touch the mat with your elbow or knee. So it was prize enough if you managed not to give into the game. Not to mention it wouldn’t be fair to Kai if there was a prize added due to the fact that he couldn’t really play the game.

With all that sorted out in his head, Jay could easily confirm that the ‘battle of the oranges’ definitely needed a prize, a goal to work for. And that led him back to his original question. What was going to be the prize for winning the battle?

“ So this is where you’re hiding.”

Jay startled so hard at the sound of the new voice that he jumped into the air, throwing the oranges and the spoons out of his hands in the process. With a clatter, the spoons landed on the ground, but the blue ninja was more focussed on trying to catch the oranges so they didn’t splatter against the floorboards. Somehow, after a bit of floundering, he managed to catch one of the flying fruits. But it wasn’t until after another hand had managed to rush in and catch the other before it landed on the ground that he realised who it was who had called out to him.

Slowly, Cole rose to his feet, saved orange in hand. Once he was standing again, he couldn’t stop the embarrassed smirk from appearing over his features or his hand from moving to rub at the back of his neck.

“ Sorry, buddy.” He said, holding out the orange he held. “ I didn’t mean to scare ya. We were just wondering where you’d disappeared to.”

This time it was Jay’s turn to look sheepish. “ I, uh… I came to get the orange battle game ready. Then I realised that I had no prize for whoever won the game.”

“ A prize for the battle, hey?”

“ Yeah.” Jay confirmed as he quickly bent down to gather the scattered spoons.

“ Got any ideas so far?”

“ Absolutely none. And I can’t go and make one now. The party’s already started.”

“ Why not make it something to do with the party?”

“ Like what?”

The black ninja merely gave his friend a knowing look as he placed the orange that was still in his hand on the bench and started making his way back out of the kitchen. Once he reached the doorway, though, he turned back to face his still confused friend.

“ Just between you and me, that lemon chiffon cake I bought looks mighty tasty.”

With that said, he was gone, leaving Jay to try and decipher what it was he had been trying to say. Exactly one minute later, it dawned on him. He could use the cake as the prize. He could use the – no, not the first slice. First slice always goes to the birthday person (or nindroid, in this case). So the second piece could be the prize. But it couldn’t be an ordinary sized slice of cake either. Winning prize could be an extra slice of cake… or an extra big slice of cake. And it would be the second piece cut after Zane’s.

That’s what he’ll do. An extra big slice of birthday cake for the winner of the battle of the oranges.

It was times like this where Jay found himself proud to be Cole’s best friend. But now that he had the game components in his hand and the plan for the prize in his head, he knew he was needed elsewhere. Still he checked over the oranges in case of any damage from his scare and gave the spoons a quick clean of any dirt they may have gathered from the ground before taking everything he needed with him into the lounge room.

Only, when he got back to the lounge room, he found the ‘Twister’ board out and Nya, Lloyd and Zane already on various points on the mat. Cole was waiting on the side, looking at Kai as he spun the spinner.

“ Okay, Cole. Left foot, yellow.” The couch bound ninja called out.

Cole placed his left foot on the nearest yellow spot on the mat. It was when he looked up again that he noticed Jay making his way into the lounge room.

“ Jay!” he called, alerting the others of his return. “ Sorry. The others started pulling out the game almost as soon as I was back in the room myself.”

“ Sorry, Jay.” Four other voices called, realising that they did wrong in not waiting for their friend.

“ Doesn’t matter.” Jay admitted. “ I was going to suggest starting a game, anyway. Maybe next round?”

But there was the slightest hint of disappointment in the blue ninja’s voice that the others managed to pick up on. He had been hoping to be there when they chose which game to start with. Kai looked at the game they had just started and then back to Jay, who was making room for the items he held on the table. That’s when an idea popped into his head.

“ You know, we only just started.” He said, a glint in his eye. “ I’m pretty sure we can fit one more on the mat.”

“ I don’t know. It could get messy after a while.” Jay pointed out though light-heartedly.

“ We’re not playing messy twister, Jay.” Nya said with a smile on her face. She could tell that he was waiting for the right moment to join in the fun now that the option had been put forward.

Of course, that’s also when a dangerous smirk appeared on Lloyd’s face.

It was a smirk that Zane zeroed in on the moment he saw it.

“ And we are not going to play messy twister any time today.” The birthday nindroid stated.

“ Aww.” Was the green ninja’s disappointed reply.

“ Besides, we do not have everything prepared for such a messy game.”

Jay couldn’t help the giggle that managed to escape his throat after hearing Lloyd’s disappointment. Thing was, there was a reason why he hadn’t suggested any of the messier games from his list for this (if he did say so himself) awesome party. Zane was not keen on making a mess of things (and to be honest, neither was he). And this was Zane’s party. It had to be perfect for him.

“ Come on, Jay. Get in here.” Cole’s voice once more penetrated the lightning master’s thoughts.

Kai even shook the spinner a little to help make up his friend’s decision. And, with the smile growing on Jay’s face, it appeared to work. Hurriedly placing the oranges and the spoons on the cleared out section of the table, the blue ninja hurried to get to his position by the twister mat. It was with Kai’s call of ‘left foot, red’ that Jay entered the game. And said game’s difficulty increased.

No one cared about the difficulty, though. They were all too busy concentrating on where they had to place their hand or foot and generally having fun. Even if they were twisting their bodies around each other and amusing Kai in the process. As the game progressed, it was clear that Kai was enjoying watching his friends struggle with trying to clamber over each other in order to reach their next move.

Within the next five minutes of Jay joining in the game, though, Lloyd, who was reaching over Nya, miscalculated where he was going with his hand and managed to get not only himself out, but the water ninja as well. The movement caused him to fall to his knee, which forced his body down onto Nya and they both ended up on the mat. Now the hard part was getting off the mat without causing anyone else to tumble.

“ You guys okay?” Cole asked with a strained voice as Kai struggled to keep his laughter locked away at the sight before him.

“ We’ll be fine.” Nya replied. “ Just… Zane are you able to lift up your leg so I can squeeze under?”

“ I am afraid not, Nya.” Zane apologised. “ I fear if I do, it may cause me to lose balance and cause the rest of us to fall.”

“ It’s okay.” Lloyd spoke up. “ I think maybe I can…”

Whatever Lloyd was trying to do to get himself and Nya out of the game clearly didn’t work because, when he moved to try and slide out underneath everyone else, he ended up knocking into Cole, who knocked into Jay, who let out a surprised yelp as he tumbled over everyone else and effectively ended the game. Poor Kai couldn’t get enough air into his lungs as he finally let loose the mighty guffaws that had engulfed him. And the fact that no one could get out of the ninja tangle that was the result of what had happened didn’t seem to help the fire ninja.

“ Okay, whoever’s on top, get off!” Nya’s voice growled from somewhere underneath the pile of boys.

“ I think that’s me.” Jay replied, going to do what was asked and finding himself unable to. In his attempt, a titanium hand slipped over his shoulder. “ Scratch that, I think it’s Zane.”

“ My apologies.” Zane muttered to those below him as he returned his hand to Jay’s back in order to slide himself off the pile.

“ Hey, I have an idea!” Lloyd’s voice piped up. “ Cole…”

“ Don’t you finish that sentence.” Cole growled back, managing to take a swipe at Lloyd’s side as he attempted to move. “ If I use my super strength, I’ll probably send you guys flying.”

“ Yeah, I don’t like the sound of that.” Jay admitted.

All the while, Kai was still trying to ignore the commentary and calm down his laughter. Sadly, it was failing. Whenever he thought he was going to be able to breathe again, someone would say something as they attempted to get off the ninja pile and he would start up again. Even when his sister growled at him to stop laughing, he couldn’t stop until he was sure that all five of the tangled ninja were no longer piled up on the mat.

“ Oh man, that was fun to watch.” He said, laughter still managing to escape his lips.

“ Yeah, well, that last part didn’t feel fun.” Lloyd shot back, stretching his back and receiving a few cracks for his efforts.

All other players immediately rounded on the green ninja. And the looks they were giving him sent him cowering slightly.

“ Don’t you talk. That pile up was your fault, Lloyd.” Cole pointed out.

This time, the giggle that entered the room came from Lloyd. And it was quite a nervous one at that.

“ So… what now?” Lloyd asked as a way of avoiding the embarrassment he was clearly feeling.

Unfortunately, the others could clearly see that embarrassment. And the smirks that slowly made themselves known on their faces was something that the Green ninja did not like the looks of. It was almost like the team had somehow formed a telepathic link against their leader… and that leader was worried for his life.

“ I say we dogpile him.” Cole suggested, clearly meaning Lloyd.

“ Only, he’s the one on the bottom.” Nya confirmed.

“ Get him for me!” Kai yelled, egging on whatever plan was chosen.

Lloyd’s wide eyes met with the red ninja’s. “ Shouldn’t you be helping me?”

“ What, and miss the fun of watching? Nah.”

“ Some brother you are.”

Zane lifted a hand to his chin, a surprisingly mischievous glint in his robotic eyes. “ Personally, I thought that brothers were meant to tease younger siblings. It’s part of the bond they share.”

“ Well, if that’s the case, I’ve got the perfect game for him to play.” Jay admitted, before his smile was replaced with a sheepish look. “ Though, it also targets everyone else.”

All eyes turned to Jay expectantly, Lloyd dreading what was to come. So the lightning ninja explained his ‘Pop-A-Dare’ game; pop a balloon that has a smiley face on it, do the dare that was inside and wait until it was your turn again. The saving grace was that each ninja only had to pop four balloons each… and the fact that Jay promised the dares weren’t ‘too evil’.

There just seemed to be one problem, as Zane pointed out. Jay had forgotten to mention what they were using to pop the balloons with.

“ Gah! I knew there was something I was forgetting!” the lightning ninja exclaimed, moving to pull at his hair.

Nya hurried to intercept his hands from their path in an attempt to stop her boyfriend from going prematurely bald.

“ We could use our powers.” Kai suggested innocently.

“ Yeah, and have you fry your dares and set the board the balloons are stuck to on fire?” Cole questioned despite not liking the idea of always getting a dare himself. “ I’d rather take my chances with a shuriken or a kunai.”

“ Need I remind you, Cole, that kunai are not primary throwing weapons. They are primarily used for stabbing and thrusting.” Zane pointed out.

“ Then we use shuriken!” Jay exclaimed, giving a slight jump as he spoke. “ Wait right here while I grab one.”

Before anyone could stop him, Jay was once more making his way out of the lounge room, this time at a run towards the training room. All the others could do was watch him run off. After a few seconds, though, Kai turned to look over at the television set on the other side of the room.

“ He does remember that we keep a set of shuriken, kunai, daggers and stuff in a chest behind the TV, right?” the fire master asked aloud.

“ Judging by the fact that he ran off to the training room, I would say no.” Cole replied.

“ Should we get the chest out, then?” Lloyd asked, also looking at the television.

“ Nah, Jay’s got this.” Kai smirked, relaxing further into the lounge.

Before anyone could question what the fire ninja meant, the sound of running feet echoed down the hallway once more. Turning to look out the door, the other ninja all noticed Jay making his way back to the lounge room. The only problem was, the lightning ninja had no shuriken on him. Though, it seemed Jay planned on remedying that by heading straight for the hidden chest behind the television.

“ You totally forgot that was there, didn’t you, Jay?” Kai asked smugly, even as Nya shook her head and the other boys sighed at their friend’s fleeting memory.

“ I said nothing.” Jay mumbled, his head in the chest as he searched for the weapon he was seeking. “ Aha, there you are!”

Carefully, Jay emerged from behind the television, one of the dragon patterned shuriken in his hand. With a smirk, he placed the weapon in Lloyd’s hand and positioned him so that he was facing the balloon board. All Lloyd could do was look at the weapon, questioning why he had been handed the shuriken.

“ Because it was your fault we all ended up in a tangle during Twister,” the blue clad boy said dangerously, “ you get the first turn. Agreed?”

“ Agreed.” The confirmation came from the other members of the dogpile, who all stepped away from Lloyd for fear of getting hurt.

Lloyd had no choice but to go on with the hidden torture that was a game of dares. Knowing his luck, he’d probably get the worst four dares that were in the balloons. And they were probably all something to do with Cole’s cooking. At least Jay hadn’t planned for any of the games to have blindfolds… at least that he knew of.

Taking a deep breath, he lined up the shuriken he held with one of the balloons and threw it. With a loud POP! the shuriken found its mark, the dare inside resting on the balloon below it. Cautiously, the green ninja walked up to the balloon board and picked up the slip of paper, praying that the dare written on it wasn’t that bad.

Unfortunately, it was probably the worst one that could have been written. Just glancing at the last word of the dare made a stone drop in Lloyd’s stomach. And actually reading that dare made that stone evolve into a boulder. Written on the slip of paper were the words _‘drink something prepared by Cole’._

“ Well, Lloyd? What’d you get?” Cole asked.

“ Um… how are your mixer skills, Cole?” Lloyd replied nervously.

“ Why?”

“ Because I have to drink something that you have to prepare for me.”

Cole beamed. Finally, he was able to enter the kitchen to make something after having been banned for a week if not more. He didn’t care that it was for a dare, nor did he care that the other ninja were all wincing in sympathy for what Lloyd had to do. He just turned around and hurried out of the lounge room and into the kitchen to start preparing Lloyd’s drink.

Meanwhile, Lloyd had to sit down in the nearest available seat. It was safe to say he was fearing for his life with what Cole could be planning. Already he could hear things crashing and clinking from the kitchen. Though, things started to get even more worrisome when the team heard the sound of the black ninja bashing something to death. And the fact that they could all hear Cole whistling as he worked made them all question his level of sanity.

Finally, after waiting what felt like an eternity of doom but was really only a few minutes, Cole returned to the lounge room. In his hand was a glass of blackish purple liquid that was fizzed up and sported a toothpick umbrella that Cole had found in the kitchen. Just the sight of the drink coming towards him made Lloyd fear what it was that his friend had concocted for him.

“ Here you go, Lloyd.” The Earth master said cheerfully, handing the drink to the clearly worried green ninja. “ One Honey Myrtle Frizz, just for you.”

Hesitantly, Lloyd took the glass, his eyes never leaving the dark liquid as it travelled closer to his lips. Cautiously, he looked up at Jay.

“ Are you sure we can’t pass up dares?” he asked, ignoring the frown that Cole was now giving him.

“ No passes.” Jay confirmed. “ You have to do the dare.”

Lloyd gulped. That meant there was only one thing he had to do. One thing he could do, really. He tossed his head back and chugged the drink, not noticing the wide-eyed look of concern that Cole’s features had contorted themselves into.

The first thing he noticed was the taste. Whatever the drink was, it had a sweet taste to it. And the green ninja couldn’t tell if that sweetness was from the honey, the myrtle berries or the lemonade he could clearly taste. Then there was a sudden rush of cold burning through him as the crushed ice in the drink made itself known. How he managed to put the glass down without breaking it was beyond him because he was sure both his hands had flown to his head at the pain.

“ Oh no! Cole’s poisoned Lloyd!” he could just hear Jay panic through the pounding of his head.

“ What! No I didn’t!” Cole defended. “ He was the one who chugged it!”

“ Lloyd, are you okay? Speak to me!” Kai tried to get through to his young friend.

“ Brain freeze.” Lloyd managed weakly.

“ Press your tongue to the top of your mouth and blow warm air into your hands.” Zane instructed upon hearing Lloyd’s words.

Not knowing what else to do, Lloyd did as he was told. Even as the other ninja all turned to the birthday nindroid in slight confusion. They had heard of doing one or the other, but never both at the same time.

“ Seeing as both options have the best outcomes when it comes to dealing with brain freezes, I figured that combining the two would be a more effective way of quickly dispelling the pain.” Was the explanation they got.

No one was too sure if it would work or not, but, after a minute or two of doing what had been ordered, the pain in Lloyd’s head seemed to dissipate and his brain started registering things again.

“ So… how was it?” Nya asked once Lloyd had put his hands down.

“ Before the brain freeze or after?” Lloyd replied, not so innocently smiling.

“ What do you think, Lloyd?”

The smile on Lloyd’s face widened slightly. “ The drink was surprisingly sweet… before it tried to freeze my brain.”

“ See, I told you Cole was trying to kill Lloyd.” Jay interrupted with a huff.

“ Okay, two things, Lightning bug.” Cole was practically growling at this point, and the look on his face clearly told everyone that he meant business. “ One, I was not trying to kill anyone. It would just be rude to Zane to have his friends killing each other on his birthday. Besides, Lloyd was the one who chugged crushed ice down his throat. And two, this was your dare game, therefore it’s your dare. I was just doing what the dare was telling me to do; prepare a drink.”

“ Actually…”

All eyes turned to Nya as her rather embarrassed tone echoed around the room. The awkward smile that was plastered on her face instantly told the boys that she played a part in that particular dare. And it scared them. Lloyd even looked back down at the sheet of paper he still had on him, and sure enough, he recognised the handwriting as that belonging to the water ninja and not her boyfriend.

At about the same time, the others seemed to realise what it was Nya had done. They didn’t even look at each other or Lloyd to figure it out, either. Their eyes just went wide at the same time as they realised just how dark the devilish side of the water ninja was turning out to be… and that was just with one dare.

“ Nya?” There was a slight quiver in Cole’s voice, portraying his mixed emotions at the discovery.

“ Yeah. I wrote that dare.” The water ninja confirmed. “ I was kinda hoping Kai would get it though.”

“ Me?!” Kai almost leapt off the lounge in shock.

“ Did you really think I’d forget about what you did the other day? Before the crash?”

“ Actually, I thought the crash was karma enough.”

Nya could only shake her head at her brother, unable to get any more words out on the matter, before focussing her attention on Lloyd. “ Be thankful it was one of Cole’s drinks and not something that he’s cooked.”

“ Hey!” Cole huffed, pride wounded once more.

“ Yeah, why is that?” Jay asked, completely ignoring his best friend’s outburst.

“ I’ve found Cole’s drinks are better than his cooking.” Nya explained.

“ Awe, thanks, Nya.” Okay, so Cole’s pride wasn’t too bruised. And it showed with the smile he now wore.

Before the master of earth could step away, however, he found Lloyd pressing the shuriken into his hand. And that could only mean one thing. His turn was next. He didn’t want to be next. There was no way to tell what other horrors lay within those smiling balloons of deception. And, to be completely honest, he was scared to find out what else Nya could have written on those little slips of paper that she had written on.

“ Well, seeing as you all picked me to go first,” Lloyd was saying, “ I pick Cole to go next because I can’t be bothered getting up just yet.”

“ Lazy!” Kai called back jokingly.

“ Don’t you start or I’m giving you the shuriken next.” Cole reprimanded, accepting his fate and stepping a good distance in front of the balloon board.

Just like Lloyd before him, the master of earth took a deep breath, lined up the throwing star with one of the balloons, and let go of the weapon with a flick of his wrist. Seconds after the balloon popped, he was making his way to what he hoped was not his doom. It was funny, though. He had been frightened of a lot of things in his life; losing his mother, fearing his father would disown him, dragons, and water to name a few. But nothing scared him more (at that current moment) than picking up that little slip of paper and doing what it said.

He just never expected to get one of the dares he had written himself. And because of that, he couldn’t stop the small burst of laughter that escaped him as he read ‘ _eat something without using your hands’._

“ What’s so funny?” Lloyd asked.

“ I managed to get one of my own dares.” Cole explained.

Kai did not look impressed by that bit of information.

“ Okay, who exactly did the dares?” He asked, eyeing the four ninja who had remained on the _Bounty._

“ I did, like, four of them.” Cole admitted. “ It was all I could think of.”

“ I think I managed either five or six.” Nya added. “ But Jay needed the help and Cole and I were between jobs.”

All eyes turned to Jay, making him kick at the ground slightly thanks to his nerves. “ I may or may not have added all of those ideas in with my own. But I did the majority.”

“ You really went all out, my friend.” Zane smiled, placing a comforting hand on the blue ninja’s shoulder.

“ You deserve the best, Zane.”

Rounds of agreement were echoed throughout the room… although Cole’s reply was a bit muffled. That drew attention back to him where he was caught standing in front of a plate of mini sausages. One was missing.

Cole swallowed. “ What? I never said what I had to eat, just that I had to eat without using hands, which I did.”

“ But how do we know you didn’t use your hands while we weren’t looking?” Zane asked with a slight smirk on his face.

With a shrug, Cole bent down over the table and carefully moved another sausage away from the others using only his mouth. Once the sausage was clear, he carefully picked it up with his teeth before tilting his head back to get a better grip as he ate. But even as he did that, Kai noticed that his eyes were travelling around the room, clearly deciding who to pick for the next dare. And, if he was being completely honest, he did not like the fact that Cole’s eyes seemed to linger on him.

Sure enough, Cole ended up handing him the shuriken and Kai had to be the third person to resign himself to being dared by a smiling balloon. Though someone did have to collect the shuriken and the slip of paper for him. He chose Nya, who, with one look at what her brother had to do, burst into laughter.

When Kai was able to wrestle the paper from her, the colour drained from his face. He figured there were some terrible dares hidden within those deceptive balloons; the one Lloyd had first gotten being his first clue. He never expected something like this to appear, though.

“ Well, Kai?” Nya asked, the devil’s grin on her face. “ Who do you choose?”

“ For what?” Jay asked, not understand what his girlfriend meant.

Kai heaved a sigh before replying. “ I have to let someone fix my hair the way _they_ want. Worst of all, I have to leave it until the end of the game. Who wrote this dare?”

No one came forth, though, thanks to the glint in her eyes, Kai could only guess that it was his sister’s dare. But the others also had intrigued expressions on their faces. And he knew from experience (Jay sneaking in to film him in the shower, among other times) that they all wanted to see what he looked like with his hair down. Because he knew, that was what was going to happen. Whoever he picked was going to attack his hair and mess up his ‘do, just so they could appease their curiosity.

He did not like this dare _one bit_.

“ Zane. Promise you’ll be gentle.” The fire ninja could not help sounding so dejected at the thought of losing his preciously spiked hairdo.

“ Of course.” Zane replied, a gentle smile on his face.

The next five minutes felt like agony for the injured teen. And this was despite the fact that Zane was being quite gentle in hand washing and brushing the gel from Kai’s spikes. And even though his hair was styled so that it was off his face, it was clear that Kai had a decent head of hair on him. Even wet, Kai’s hair was thick and sat just past his ears, it’s length matching that of his hairline. And, despite being wet, it was clear that his hair had a natural wave to it.

The only one not shocked at the discovery was Nya who had seen her brother’s hair like that on the odd occasion when they were younger. So she knew just how uncomfortable her brother now felt. Taking pity on her brother, she took the shuriken… only, she was not too pleased with the dare she got either.

She had to let all of the boys give her a makeover.

Lloyd clearly had no clue on what he was doing with hair and makeup, so he ended up just passing things to the others. Kai worked his magic by doing her hair for her (though he would never admit to the fact that he secretly missed doing this for her now that they had grown up) in a braid that started on one side of the head and finished over the other shoulder. Skylor had told him the name of the braid, but the only thing he remembered was that it started with a ‘k’.

Zane was much like Lloyd in the sense that he was passing things to Cole and Jay. But he was also helping with tips that he found on the internet that would help accentuate Nya’s natural look. As for Cole and Jay, they were doing surprisingly well with applying the makeup. The only reason that came to mind was that they had had to learn in order to perform in front of the camera, regardless of if that camera was linked to dancing or presenting.

The end result left Jay completely speechless as he had been kicked out of the room just before Nya’s makeover was complete. In fact, he was so mind blown at his lover’s beauty that he didn’t register anything else after that. Zane ended up having his turn (which was to make up a story about the item on his right. That item turned out to be the shuriken he held) before anyone was able to snap the lightning master from his daydream.

When Jay finally registered the rest of the world, he noted that Zane was just finishing his little story. Although, when he got his own dare, he realised just how scary he had made some of the dares. He had to pull out his phone and send a blind text to a random number. That random number turned out to belong to his mother, who instantly rang him after receiving his text of gobbledygook. The other ninja almost couldn’t contain their laughter as they watched the blue ninja struggle with trying to convince his mother that everything was fine.

A good fifteen minutes later (because the other ninja seemed to find watching Jay flap his arms around and get worked up over the phone call entertaining), the party was able to continue. And, as Pop-A-Dare continued, it seemed like Zane was getting all the easy dares like _sing and act out the teapot song_ and _make up a poem about your element._ But no one could fault what seemed to be dares perfectly matched to the player when they all heard Zane’s poem.

_‘Little shapes of white_

_Forming as I think of them_

_On my open palm’_

When he heard that, Jay tasked himself with yet another mission; get Zane to compile an anthology of poems with him. It would probably be just for fun, but if the titanium ninja was willing, there could be a possibility that it could end up on bookshelves everywhere. Maybe. Oh, who was he kidding? The only copy would end up in Master Wu’s private collection if not Zane’s.

Though, Nya seemed to be a close second when it came to getting easy dares. Especially when she got dares like _draw a picture with your feet_ and _bite a lemon._ What was even more surprising was that the foot art (as Jay started calling it) was relatively good. Admittedly, it was of a simple, wavy dress. But no one seemed to care. Especially when there weren’t any rules on what could be drawn and what couldn’t. It just proved that the water ninja was quite artistic.

But there were some dares that were complete doozies. Amongst other things, Kai had to take a photo of himself sticking a finger up his nose and post it to all his social media links. Of course, the captions all read that he was going to kill Jay, but his views seemed to skyrocket almost the second the image was up. Though it wouldn’t be until later that night that the fire master would attempt to salvage his reputation and plan his revenge.

And aside from Jay finding out that Cole could give a mean massage, the master of earth had found himself dancing. Much to his chagrin. Even worse was the fact that his last dare had him belly dancing to a country song. It took Zane finding a country song on the internet for him to do the dance because no one had any country songs in their playlists. And then they all found out, Cole included, that the master of earth could not belly dance. It turned out to be one hilarious dare.

And yet, Cole wasn’t the only one to dance. Jay had to make up the silliest dance he could think of. The best thing about that (at least in Jay’s mind) was that all the moves he did left no trace to the fact that he could dance. That secret was kept well hidden amongst the chicken wing flaps and head shakes and octopus arms.

Poor Lloyd did not have any luck with the dares, though. Not only did he get a brain freeze drinking one of Cole’s drinks, he also had to give Kai a foot massage… which he refused to do without gloves or a mask on. Pegs were not an option despite there being some in the laundry room. Kai wouldn’t let him get one. But at least he made up for it in the ‘Battle of the Oranges’ game.

The rules of the game were simple; after placing the spoon handle in your mouth, you had to knock the orange off your opponent’s spoon before they did the same to yours. The ninja just had to figure out how they were going to play tournament style with only six people. Zane proposed that they each got a number from one to six and then players three to six would roll a pair of die in order to see who they were going to go against. Players one and two would then fight it out in a round of ‘rock, paper, clamp’ to determine which group they would be paired off with.

Cole and Lloyd were handed numbers one and two respectively while Zane got number three, Kai got number four, Nya number five and Jay number six. Zane and Kai were the first to roll their die with Zane getting a higher number on his dice and thus moving him to the first pairing. Kai got stuck in the second pairing. When Nya and Jay rolled their die, it was revealed that Kai would be versing his sister. And after their round of ‘rock, paper, clamp’, Lloyd was placed with Zane and Jay while Cole was placed with the Smith siblings.

Just for good measure, the ever thoughtful nindroid got a piece of paper and marked everyone’s positions so they would not be forgotten.

Despite all the preparations, nothing could get the competitive spirit soaring higher than finding out that the prize for winning the ‘Battle of the Oranges’ would be the second slice of cake. But that wasn’t all, the second slice of cake would be extra big. Cole almost fell in love with the mental image of gaining one eighth of the cake he had gotten for his friend. Kai’s eyes shone at the thought of preventing Cole from getting that extra large slice of cake. Lloyd seemed just as excited as Cole was at getting the cake but just as determined as Kai to stop Cole from getting it. Jay, Zane and Nya knew they were tasked with damage control.

The battles themselves were quite something. After epically losing to Zane after one calculated swing of his spoon, Jay admitted that he had never even heard of this game before let along played it. Lloyd laughed it off saying that the last time he had fought with oranges, it was back at Darkley’s where he was literally throwing the oranges. Somehow, hearing that had caused Nya to lose her focus and Kai won the next round.

Of course, no one knew how Lloyd managed to beat Zane. It just kind of happened. Though both Jay and Nya suspected that Zane let Lloyd win. But nindroids never reveal their secrets, so it was never confirmed. Kai and Cole’s battle, on the other hand, was pretty tough. There were times where one orange would look like it was going to fall but it would be saved at the last moment. And this was despite the fact that Kai was starting to feel uncomfortable thanks to the position he was sitting in.

In the end, Kai lost, leaving Cole and Lloyd to battle it out for the bigger slice of cake they both had their eyes on. And if Cole’s fight with Kai was tough to watch, the fight with Lloyd was even tougher. Both had massive sweet tooths. Both wanted the extra big slice of cake for themselves. Both tried everything they could think of to throw their opponent off their game. But it was one slip in focus from Cole that left Lloyd taking hold of the prize.

“ Okay, okay.” Cole sighed as he placed his spoon on the table. “ You win, Lloyd.”

Lloyd couldn’t stop grinning. He beat Cole… for cake. He could almost feel his inner child returning to the surface at the fact. And he was sure that the others had noticed. But as he looked around and noticed the amused smiles on his family’s faces, he noticed that Jay was once more missing.

“ Where’s Jay gone this time?” He asked.

“ Think about it, Lloyd. You can’t have a prize like the second piece of cake without the cake present, now, can you?” Kai smirked, once more relaxing into the lounge.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Jay came in carrying a small yet elegant looking cake with a couple of candles placed neatly on the top. The cake was a round cake covered in white icing. Blue edible glitter shimmered along the sides while tiny, light blue snowflakes ringed the edge of the top. In the same light blue icing, in the centre of the ring, were the words _‘Happy Birthday Zane’_.

Lloyd and Cole quickly and carefully moved the main table of food out of the way and replaced it with a smaller, round table that had been hiding in the corner of the room. They placed the new table (which had already been dressed for the occasion with a clean tablecloth, a serving knife, paper plates and plastic spoons) in front of the lounge as Kai gingerly moved to make room for the birthday boy.

Of course, Zane worried a little about the way Kai was moving in case he ended up hurting himself even more, but Nya was there to make sure that he didn’t worry on his birthday. Then again, as soon as Zane was seated at the table, Jay placed the cake in front of him and practically forced him not to worry about anything except having fun and enjoying the party. Even Kai gave him his signature cocky grin in an attempt to quell the worry they could all see bubbling just below the surface.

“ Care to do the honours, Kai?” the blue ninja asked, motioning to the unlit candles.

“ Certainly.” The red ninja replied, still with a smirk.

With a click of his fingers, Kai lit his thumb on fire and used it like lighter to light the candles. Once the candles were lit, Lloyd flicked off the light. It wasn’t long after that that the unique sound of his brothers and sister singing ‘happy birthday’ graced Zane’s ears. They may not have been singing in tune, but at least they were singing in time and that is what made Zane smile. In fact, the entire party made Zane smile.

“ Happy birthday to you!” the ninja finished rather loudly.

“ Blow out the candles, Zane!” Came Lloyd’s excited voice seconds later.

“ And make a-” Cole started to say before being interrupted by Jay.

“ Don’t say that word!”

“ Okay. I won’t say that word. How about dream? Or prayer? Make a prayer!”

Not one to disappoint, Zane blew out the candles. But just before he did, he closed his eyes for a few seconds, sending a silent prayer to whoever was listening for a long reign of peace to wash over Ninjago. Of course, whether or not that prayer would be answered was yet to be seen. Yet Zane had a feeling that, even if trouble was around the corner, his friends would always be by his side to make sure nothing bad happened to each other.

The light was turned on quickly after the candles had been blown out, and the cake was cut and served. As promised, Lloyd got a bigger piece of cake than anyone else once Zane had his traditional first slice in hand. And, though the lemon chiffon flavour of the cake may not have been everyone’s favourite, no one could deny that it was still good.

Not to mention the fact that Cole seemed to beam at the praise he got for sorting out the cake. Though that could also have been because no one had knocked him for managing to restrain himself from eating the cake before it was ready for the party. Then again, there was something about the gleam in Kai’s eyes that clearly told the black ninja that he was holding back any smart remarks.

But even after the cake was finished and what was left put to one side for later, everyone seemed to relax. The party was coming to a close. And already things were being tidied (on Zane’s insistence), from dirty dishes being stacked on the table to the games being put in their boxes or tidied into a pile for later clean up. Cole had even lowered the volume on the music.

Still there was something buzzing around in Jay’s head. He just couldn’t put a name to what it was, though. He knew it had something to do with the party, just what was it?

“ Hey, guys. Do any of you want to play one last game?” He asked, looking around the room at his friends.

“ What sort of game?” Zane asked, interest peaked.

“ Well, I was kind of thinking ‘Would You Rather’.”

Kai shrugged his shoulders as the other ninja found themselves comfortable spots to sit. “ Why not?” He said.

“ I’m game.” Cole added.

“ Should be fun.” Nya added.

Lloyd merely gave her a small, knowing smile before he said anything. “ Just wait until you get a tough question. Remember, you can ask anything to anyone.”

“ I am channelling my inner Jay, here, Lloyd, and trying to be optimistic.”

“ Who should go first?” Zane asked.

The others looked between each other for a few seconds, silently asking the same thing. In each of their minds, there was only one person who could start the game. Especially given what day it was. Still, it was best to confirm with everyone else first before the decision was made.

“ Why don’t you start, Zane?” Cole offered. “ It is your special day after all.”

Zane was about to agree when Nya suddenly jumped up from her spot between the lounge and her boyfriend.

“ Wait!” She cried. “ I almost forgot.”

The others sent curious and confused looks her way, not understanding the dilemma she had found herself in. Nya ignored them in favour of making her way over to the far side of the music station where the still covered bird cage waited. It was then that the other boys (minus Zane) realised what was going on. That was also when each one of those boys gained a slightly embarrassed look on their faces as they realised that they had almost forgotten the gift as well. Jay figured this was what had been nagging him.

“ Here, Zane.” Nya was saying as she brought the bird cage over to the birthday nindroid. “ I’m sorry that it’s not wrapped in birthday paper and that it doesn’t have a card. I honestly ran out of hours to even think about one.”

“ Should have asked one of us.” Kai coughed quietly into his hand to Jay, Cole and Lloyd who all nodded in agreement.

Nya glared at him for a brief second before returning focus to Zane. “ I hope you like it. It’s from all of us.”

“ Thank you, Nya.” Zane smiled, placing a hand on the cage, ready to remove the cover. “ Thank you, all of you.”

It was almost like the entire room was holding its breath as Zane finally took off the covering from the cage. And, as the cloth came away from the bars, it was easy to see why. Resting on the perch in the cage was a metallic black bird with metallic gold beak and talons. The falcon. Its head was to its chest and its wings seemed to be drooping slightly, but it was thanks to that position that metallic blue feather tips were able to be seen on the wings and the tail. The same metallic blue was present on the bird’s head in two thin lines from the top of its closed eyes down to its shoulders.

“ The falcon.” Was all Zane could get out at the sight of his old friend, and even then, he spoke in a whisper.

Almost as if he was in a dream, the titanium ninja slowly opened the cage and reached in to caress his old friend. Stroking his fingers against the falcon’s chest, he noted that it had been remade with titanium as well. That’s when he figured that Nya had managed to colour the various components that made the bird to give him back his original colouring.

But something felt wrong. Even with the tenderness he was exuding towards his friend, the falcon remained asleep. Usually, when he caressed his chest feathers while he rested, the falcon would wake and give a comforted cherup. Not this time. Worriedly, he looked up at Nya who merely smiled gently back at him.

“ He hasn’t been activated yet after being rebuilt.” She explained. “ Try running your hand along the blue stripes on his head.”

Carefully, almost as if he were scared he’d hurt the bird, Zane trailed his hand along the blue lines on the falcon’s head. It was a few seconds later that the falcon blinked its eyes open. But there was another noticeable difference to this new version of an old friend. The falcon’s eyes were blue. The same blue as Zane’s eyes. And when those blue eyes landed on Zane, the falcon instantly ruffled its wings and hopped onto Zane’s awaiting arm where, once it was free of the cage, it danced… the very same dance that it had mimicked from Zane way back in front of the old Monastery before it burnt down.

“ It is good to see you again, my friend.” The titanium ninja smiled. He then turned back to face Nya. “ How did you…?”

“ It took a while, especially with everything that was going on,” Nya admitted, “ but after searching through the wreckage of the _Destiny’s Bounty,_ Pixal and I managed to find the falcon in our half. He was damaged, but with Pixal’s memories of the falcon’s schematics back when Morro’s ghosts were around, we were able to build him a new body. Jay helped with some of the smaller wirings and that that neither of us were able to get to for one reason or another.

“ You’ve noticed he’s a little different than the previous times. The blue points that out. But that’s because I… well, I hope that we’ve managed to combine all three previous forms. He’s got a titanium body that’s coloured like his original form, but he’s also able to help a little more in battle if needed. The laser beams that were previously attached to his wings are now in his eyes, you can share sight with him like you used to be able to do, and this time he’s able to slice through objects with his wings hence why the lasers are now in the eyes. Not to mention the beak and talons are a lot sharper than they’ve ever been.” Nya suddenly gained a sheepish look to her features. “ Though, uh… I hope you don’t mind that I’ve remotely added the connecting programmes into you via system updates. They should help the two of you find each other and connect your vision, etc.”

Zane remained silent throughout the entire time Nya was explaining all of this, occasionally nodding his head as he took in what was said. And he understood why she would hide these new programmes in with his usual system updates, especially seeing that all of this was a surprise, but he would have liked to know what was going into his system. And the water ninja had protected the files well from his detection. It was only when the falcon had been activated that the files themselves were opened and the codes accessible.

Even so, Nya must have noticed the slightly betrayed look in his eyes.

“ We can have a look at the programmes later if you want.” She offered, still feeling a little guilty about having had implanted the programmes into her friend without his knowing.

“ Perhaps that would be a good idea. Even if it is to make sure the falcon is functioning properly now that he is awake.” Zane smiled, somehow knowing just what Nya needed to hear.

The falcon itself seemed to agree with the plan, looking straight at the water ninja and lowering its head to her after sending her a couple of soft caws. But then it turned its gaze on those sitting around Zane, trying to figure out where it was and what everyone was doing.

“ If you wish to explore, you can.” Zane said to his falcon “ However, we are currently on a mission despite the party that resides around us.”

With a soft nuzzle to Zane’s cheek, the falcon took flight. Though it only went as far as to land on the back of the lounge. It was clear from that motion alone that it did not wish to have Zane leave it’s sight. Though, with the fierce glare that it was giving the bird cage it had previously been in, it was not a fan of the cage. To be honest, no one could blame it.

Zane moved the cage out of the falcon’s sight before turning back to his fellow clansmen. “ Shall we continue on with the game?” He asked.

No one could help the massive grins from spreading onto their faces at the ice ninja’s words. And that was enough of an answer for him as well. After a few seconds spent thinking up a descent ‘would you rather’ question, Zane fixed his gaze on Kai and the game began.

“ Would you rather work at the Four Weapons and learn from your father or work at the monastery forge with the knowledge you have already ascertained, Kai?”

* * *

Jay lay awake, the questions and answers from their game of ‘would you rather’ still buzzing around in his head. Right from the word go, Zane had started asking the tough questions. Kai had really had to think on his answer about the forges. On one hand, he had muttered aloud, being able to learn secrets from his father was tempting, but ultimately the fire ninja had found that he would much rather work where he was needed most. And that happened to be at the monastery.

Cole wasn’t much better at the start of the game. The first question he had asked had been directed at Nya and went all the way back to the love triangle thing that had been going on between the three of them. _‘Would you rather cut a blue wire or a black wire to stop a machine’?_ Yeah, Boulderbrain really should have expected the explosion that came with ripping open that old wound. Somehow, though, Jay got the feeling that the answer Nya gave had nothing to do with the wire that was cut all those years ago.

Surprisingly, it had been with Nya that the more stupid questions started to make their appearance. To be honest, it was only expected that Lloyd got asked an animal question. But it was the answer that Nya got that surprised them all. Apparently, the green ninja would choose a demonic cat over an angelic dog any day. Whether or not the others should be concerned about that discovery was another story.

Then there was the fact that Jay was sure that half the team nearly died of embarrassment when Cole had asked him if he would rather an expensive wedding or a simple wedding. The blue ninja could understand why Nya suddenly got embarrassed over the question despite it not being directed towards her. Jay had promised himself to her after all. As for Kai getting all flustered… Jay really thought that his friend was okay with him dating his sister by now.

Of course, Jay had to get even for that one. And the best way to get that was to ask Cole if he would rather kiss a boy or a girl. Not only did Cole’s face go the same colour as Kai’s gi, but it also sent the earth master floundering for an answer. Somehow, through the commotion that was having to explain preferences to Zane (who, despite everything, still had some learning to do of the modern world), Cole managed to avoid giving an actual answer… which Jay only just realised now that the day was over and everyone was either in bed or else still getting ready for bed.

The falcon even tried to join in the game sometime after Zane had asked his third question, calling out a couple of times when it was the nindroid’s turn, as if to ask a question itself. And because Zane could understand it, he ended up asking the question for it. Thanks to the falcon, Cole found himself being asked if he would rather squirrels or chickens.

How the falcon knew about Wu’s chicken was beyond any of them, but they were all mostly confused about why a squirrel was mentioned. The master of earth could only assume that the falcon had been watching him while he was working as a lumberjack. That was when the other ninja learnt that Cole had a soft spot for squirrels.

Looking back, they had a pretty intense game of ‘would you rather’ going at the end of the party. By the time the party actually finished, the sun had begun to set, meaning the trip to the Straflodge Ranges would have to resume come first light.

They all learnt that Kai would prefer ‘death by surfing’ (as he put it) over snorkelling, and that Nya would rather ride a horse than a walliper. Jay’s best answer had to have been riding on the back of a dragon as opposed to riding in a jet (though riding in a jet was pretty cool, too. Anything to be up in the air, to be honest). Zane would much rather build ice sculptures over building snowmen purely and simply because he could understand ice a lot better than snow. Surprisingly, though, both Cole and Lloyd would much rather spend time outdoors rather than indoors (be it doing outside sport or just revelling in the serenity; they had been asked two different questions with the same basis).

But even as he thought about it, there was just one question Jay would not ask during the game. And this was despite the fact that the question was one of the first that jumped into his head as soon as ‘would you rather’ was suggested as being one of the games played at the party. For some reason, asking it out in the lounge room just didn’t feel right, despite all the embarrassment that Cole had been putting him through.

“ Everything alright, Jay?” Cole’s voice penetrated Jay’s thoughts as he entered the room after he was done with the shower.

Jay had forgotten that Cole was the last in the shower that night. He had been the first out of the boys to shower after Nya was done and so had been consumed by his thoughts quite early on. He hadn’t even noticed when Kai, Lloyd and Zane had come into the room and gone to sleep. So it came to reason that he started so badly he swore he would have been able to touch the wooden boards above his head.

“ Everything’s fine. Of course everything’s fine. Why would they not be fine?” He found himself jabbering.

“ Maybe because you’re starting to freak out over a simple question, you’re lying on top of your bed not in your bed, and you have your thinking face on.”

“ I have a thinking face?”

“ Yes you do. You tend to stare into nothingness and you frown slightly… which, by the way, is not a good look on you.”

“ Oh.”

“ So what’s the problem?” Cole asked as he took a seat beside Jay on the edge of his bed.

Jay shifted a little so that he was sitting up and facing his best friend. Now would be the perfect time to ask his question. But would he be able to handle the answer? That is, if he even got an answer. Cole was just as likely to clam up as he was to talk when it came to sensitive things like the question that was plaguing his friend’s mind.

The earth master, on the other hand, waited patiently for whatever Jay had on his mind to come out. Judging by the look on his friend’s face, it was a tough topic. But the party had been a success. Zane loved everything about it, from the decorations to the cake. And he was extremely thankful to all of them, especially Jay, for arranging it all. So what had Jay worked himself up about now?

“ You know you can talk to me, Jay.” He prodded gently after a minute or two of silence.

“ Yeah, I do.” Jay admitted, still trying to work himself up to ask the question.

“ Then what’s on your mind? Did something go wrong with the party?”

“ No, no. Despite everything that happened before it started, the party went well. It’s just…”

“ Just what?”

Jay heaved a sigh. It was now or never.

“ I have this question… that I was going to ask during ‘would you rather’. But I never got around to asking it. For some reason, it just didn’t want to come out.” He started. No going back now.

“ Has it been on your mind all this time?” Cole asked gently.

“ Yeah. It’s… actually a question for you.”

Cole waited, tilting his head slightly and scrunching his eyebrows down to show that his interest had been piqued. Still, he waited in silence for what was to come.

“ I know it’s been a while since it happened but… would you rather be a ghost or a human?” the blue ninja finally managed to get out.

The surprise on Cole’s face appeared instantly. Here he was thinking that Jay’s troubles were caused by something from the party. He never expected that his time as a cursed ghost had affected his best friend so much that he was still thinking about it years after his close call return. But just when Jay was about to go off on one of his rants claiming that the thought was stupid and that he really shouldn’t be doubting his friend like he thought he was, a smile broke across Cole’s face.

“ I have asked myself that same question.” The black ninja admitted.

That stopped any panic from escaping Jay.

“ You have?” he asked, a slight wobble in his voice.

“ Heck yeah. It was a constant thought while I was getting used to being human again. And I’m telling you, I would much prefer to be human over a ghost.”

“ Really?”

“ Yeah. I mean, sure being a ghost gives you pretty cool powers like being able to possess things and fly (float?) by yourself and you’re incorporeal so things pretty much went straight through you… if you weren’t going through them. Not to mention being invisible was pretty cool.

“ But being human? You can touch things and actually _feel_ them. You’re not in constant fear of any and all liquids. And, although I feel for Zane being in a pretty much ageless body, I’d much rather grow up alongside my friends than watch my friends grow older and eventually die, leaving me to be forgotten and left to scare anyone I tried to befriend.”

Cole looked away as he finished his comparisons. “ That’s what made my decision for me. The feeling of being forgotten scared me the most. I guess I can understand where Yang was coming from in that respect. But yeah, I’d much rather be human than be a ghost. I wouldn’t be able to dunk Kai in the pool. And if you think I’m bad as a human with my food cravings, as a ghost I was perpetually hungry. I had to physically stop myself from eating because the food was almost going right through me. And I actually like being full sometimes. It helps you savour the flavours that ghosts can’t taste… which is to say, ghosts can’t taste anything.”

“ So if you’d have stayed a ghost we would not have been able to stop you from eating?” The question flew out of Jay’s mouth before he had even realised he had said it.

“ Probably not.”

“ Well, for the sake of being able to eat, I’m glad you’re human again.”

It was meant as a joke, and Cole clearly understood that. But he could not help act as if he was offended by that statement. In fact, the two bantered quietly back and forth for a short time over Cole no longer being a ghost… that is, until Kai woke up. And when an injured Kai (or any Kai, to be honest) is woken from his sleep, he usually wakes up with a growl. The lightning and earth masters were lucky that their fiery friend only threw a pillow in their direction.

But the two quietened down after that, Cole even sending the pillow back towards the still grumbling fire master. What Kai didn’t realise was that he had succeeded in changing the topic to what Jay planned on doing for his birthday. Especially seeing as Cole had a feeling that Jay was going to get payback on Kai for his earlier comment about his craziness. The planning for that party lasted a good fifteen minutes and only ended when Kai’s earlier blunder was mentioned.

“ What are you going to do to him?” Cole asked quietly.

“ Not sure yet. Probably something embarrassing.” Jay replied smugly.

“ Well, warn me before you start because I want to be well away from him when he explodes.”

“ But then you’ll miss out on all the fun.”

“ I’m sure you’ll video tape it. If not you, Lloyd will.”

“ Speaking of Lloyd, his birthday’s coming up. What are we going to do for him?” Jay asked seconds before a massive yawn threatened to split his face in two.

Cole had to hide his own yawn before giving a small smile. “ Let’s just get through this mission first. It’s reconnaissance and you know that won’t take two months to complete. We’ll have plenty of time to plan for the Greenbean’s birthday later. Right now, we should get some sleep before tomorrow comes around. Night Jay.”

“ Night Cole.”

With that said, the earth ninja got to his feet and crossed the room to his own bed. This left Jay to turn out the lamp that hung by his bed and get under the covers himself. There was just one thing on Jay’s mind as he closed his eyes, though. Planning for Lloyd’s birthday was just as hard as planning for Zane’s… and not because the kid’s birthday kept on getting interrupted by more important events like Zane’s did.

Lloyd hated his birthday. No one knew why he hated it so much, but he would often disappear on the day. Because of this, Jay knew that the real challenge would be to give Lloyd the birthday he deserved without him knowing that something was happening. And that meant that Lloyd was going to have to have a surprise party.

But how to differ Lloyd’s surprise party from Zane’s?


	2. Lloyd: Everything Is Awesome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was watching The Lego Movie for the first time when the idea for this story came to mind. The song is just so catchy. I had to do something with it. Unfortunately, it sat on my computer for quite a while with nothing coming to mind (except the first two lines) on how to fit the song into the story. In the end, I decided to turn it into the birthday one-shot for Lloyd. Hopefully the song manages to leak into this birthday one-shot as was intended.
> 
> This one-shot also introduces one of my OCs (two if you count the horse) into ninja life, although he is more of a minor appearance character than anything. Based on this, this one-shot can also be placed in the early chapters of my OC story that I’m working on. 
> 
> And, before you read on, please note that I did not intend for this to be longer than Zane’s birthday story. Also, I may have taken some liberties with the image of the Starfarers Comic book that Cole was reading back in season 3 when working on Lloyd’s presents.

It was late Sunday morning. Master Wu had given the ninja the day off training after a particularly rough few weeks, and, surprisingly, Lloyd was hating it. Well… he wasn’t hating having a day off as such. It was more the fact that he was alone at the monastery. And after weeks of constant drills with his uncle ‘making sure that my students do not get lazy again’ on top of having to help Echo Zane acclimatise to his upgraded body parts and taking care of Keo and his horse, being the only ninja in the monastery was kind of off-putting.

Zane and Pixal had taken Echo back to Borg Industries to check how his body was handling the new legs he had been given almost a week ago, Kai had been roped into helping Skylor at the noodle house, Jay and Nya were on a date (something about going to the skating arena), and Cole had taken Master Wu to the hospital so that they could talk to the doctor about Keo’s condition and what they could do to help him. This left Lloyd stuck at the monastery looking after the still extremely weak boy and making sure that his horse didn’t try to enter the monastery again. Not even his mother was at the monastery, having gone shopping.

To make matters worse, it was his birthday. Usually, Lloyd would have already snuck away from the others not long after breakfast. But that morning he had been cornered by the others with orders to stay and look after Keo while they all went their separate ways. And they hadn’t even said ‘happy birthday’ to him. Only his mother had when she walked in to find him alone at the dining table.

He was just about to head out to the courtyard to make sure that the horse was behaving himself when he heard the chiming of the bell that Jay had given the boy. To be honest, he was beginning to wonder when Keo would wake. It was already nearing lunch time and the boy had only woken up once that morning before anyone else had woken for the day. Zane had explained that, after going to the bathroom and taking a few sips of Master Wu’s healing tea, he had slipped back into a pain filled sleep.

Lloyd, just like the rest of the ninja, worried for the boy. They had found him essentially dying in front of the monastery gates about a week ago, two days before Echo had gone to get his new legs, to be precise. After spending a few days in hospital, he had been allowed to return to the care of the monastery. That was three days ago… and the boy seemed to be getting worse instead of better. Which was why Cole and Master Wu had gone to the hospital to talk with the boy’s doctor.

Within a few minutes, the green ninja was standing in front of the spare room that had been set aside for Keo. He took a deep breath to calm himself before opening the door.

“ Everything alright, Keo?” He asked gently.

Keo looked up at the door, his green eyes trying to focus on his visitor despite the pain clearly showing in them.

“ Mister Lloyd?” he asked, still unsure of who was who.

“ That’s me. You rang the bell?”

“ Can I go to the bathroom?”

“ Of course. Let’s get you up.”

Cautiously, Lloyd moved to the boy’s uninjured side and helped him off the bed slowly. Once Keo was on his feet, the two made the slow way across to the bathroom where Lloyd continued to help while still being respectful of the situation. Once they had returned to the room and Keo was laying back in his bed, Lloyd found himself tasked with finally feeding the kid.

He hurried into the kitchen to make a small bowl of porridge for the malnourished and injured boy. As per doctor’s orders, Keo had to have creamy porridge with mashed bananas and cocoa powder. The trouble was keeping Cole away from the cocoa powder seeing as he loved to try and get Zane to make him chocolate cakes with it. And the fact that there was only enough cocoa powder for two more bowls of Keo’s porridge made Lloyd suspicious about when the earth ninja had managed to convince their friend to make another cake… or two or three. Lloyd distinctly remembered there being about half a box of cocoa left after yesterday’s lunch meal.

Even so, the green ninja made the porridge and returned to Keo’s room. He found the boy sitting up with his head tilted back and his eyes closed.

“ Here you go, Keo. We’ve got to get some porridge into you.” He called gently.

“ More porridge?” Keo asked weakly, opening his eyes.

“ It’s what the doctor wants you to eat. He says you’re underweight and this will help you get your weight back up and hopefully help you heal faster.”

“ Oh.”

The two sat in silence as Lloyd supervised Keo as he shakily ate the porridge. It was a slow process, with Lloyd having to hold the bowl for him after he nearly shook it out of his hands, but eventually Keo managed to eat a third of the bowl before needing to stop. That was when the injured boy turned to the older teen with a questioning look on his face.

“ Is it your birthday today?” Keo asked.

“ Well, sort of.” Lloyd replied before realising that he’d have to explain things a little better for the confused kid. “ I was born in a leap year. Every four years my actual birthday comes around. For the other three years, my birthday is celebrated the day after, on the first of the month.”

“ You were born on a sacred day.” The words were spoken with such awe that Lloyd didn’t know what to say.

“ A sacred day?”

“ Yeah. My _karu_ , he told me that once every four years, for one day at the end of the second month of the year, a golden dragon would emerge at the Spirit Coves near the Straflodge Ranges. If you were lucky, you would see it flying around the mountains and be granted good luck. But come nightfall, it would set off a large jet of _fajii_ , I mean fire, and it would disappear for another four years. _Karu_ called it the Day of the Golden Dragon.” Keo fell silent again, turning to look out the window in the far wall. “ _Karu_ was also born on the Day of the Golden Dragon. _Kila_ made Golden Cake for him the day before.”

“ What’s Golden Cake?” Lloyd asked, seeing that as a way to steer the topic away from obviously sadder times.

It seemed to work because a small smile managed to emerge on Keo’s face.

“ Golden Cake is a round cake about the same size as your hand. We grew corn on our farm and _Kila_ would grind the corn into cornmeal. She’d use the cornmeal to make the Golden Cake and add honey and corn kernels to the mix. It was very sweet. _Karu_ told me that the tribe always held a festival on the Day of the Golden Dragon and these Golden Cakes were handed out all over the place.”

“ The tribe? Do you mean the Kalun people?”

“ _Karu_ said he wasn’t allowed to call them that even though he used it as a last name.”

Silence fell once more in the room. Though, this time, there was a clear air of tiredness hanging within it. Keo’s strength was obviously beginning to wane again. But something was nagging in the back of Lloyd’s mind. How did Keo know that it was his birthday, or rather the day that he tried to avoid any birthday celebrations?

“ Keo? How did you…?” Lloyd started.

Keo turned to him with a sleepy smile on his face. “ The old man with the black and gold robes told me. He wanted to wish you a happy birthday.”

“ Old man? What old man? We’re the only two people here.”

“ He had a gold dragon on the back of his robe. He told me he was your _Gikaru_ , your grandfather.”

* * *

“ Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh.”

“ Jay, will you quit panicking and get over here!”

Jay turned to face Kai, who was trying (and failing) to move one of the long tables up against the wall.

“ Coming!” He practically squeaked.

Rushing over, he grabbed the other end of the table and helped guide it into place for the party. So far only he and Nya had arrived at the Noodle House to help Kai and Skylor get the party room ready. None of them had _exactly_ lied to Lloyd about where they were going. He and Nya had gone to the skating rink… just for some more skating lessons, not an actual date. But the fact that they had all just brushed looking after Keo onto Lloyd as they planned his surprise birthday party… that sat heavily on his mind.

Zane had not long called in saying that he, Echo and Pixal would be leaving Borg Tower shortly. They were just in the middle of sorting out when Echo was going to get either one or both of his new arms. Cole and Master Wu had yet to reply to their calls, which they all expected as the two were heading to the hospital. But Jay still worried as it had been some time since anyone had heard from the two.

Nya was currently on the phone to Misako. And, by the sounds of it, the two women were trying to work out how to sneak around Lloyd to get the groceries for the monastery put away without him suspecting anything. As soon as Nya was done with the call, Jay would have to take control of the phone to call his parents while the Smith siblings continued to set up. Someone had to be at the monastery to look after Keo, after all.

Until then, this essentially left Jay and Kai to set up the room while Skylor worked in the kitchens making food for the restaurant and some of the food for the party. She may have agreed to host the party at the Noodle House so Lloyd didn’t suspect anything, but she still had a job to do. Which was why Kai was here in the first place; to start the setup as well as to help around the Noodle House.

If there was one thing that Jay had been paranoid about during his party brainstorming, it was the fact that Lloyd would most likely get angry at them all for doing this and start questioning whether or not they really did need to go all over the city.

“ Okay,” Kai said, snapping Jay out of his thoughts, “ Skylor said that she uses some of those repurposed droids to help with bringing the food up here for parties. The party guests apparently love it now that they’re not trying to destroy the city.”

“ How did she manage that?” The last he checked, Doctor Borg hadn’t been able to reboot them, leaving his parents the only ones to reprogram them thanks to some rewiring tricks. Unless…

“ Yeah, I may have taken her to see your parents about rewiring the few that Chen had decapitated back when he was still in charge of this place and the nindroids were running rampant.”

“ And you didn’t bother to tell me!”

“ You were busy.”

“ But now Skylor knows where I grew up and Ma probably had a field day telling her all about my old inventions and… other embarrassing things. You should know that once my folks find out about new friends that I’ve made, they want to do everything in their power to embarrass me about it. It’s like they want to share my private life with everyone they meet!”

“ If it helps, Jay, I spent most of my time with your father learning what needed to be done in case any of my droids needed fixing. I didn’t want to rely heavily on your parents after all.”

Jay turned to the door with a small smile as Skylor walked into the party room followed by Zane, Echo and Pixal. Echo was walking remarkably well on his shiny new legs. And even though he looked a little scared being in a new place, he also looked happy to be venturing out of the monastery. In fact, he was holding a small box in his hands that was wrapped with a green ribbon and a label that read Lloyd’s name.

But it was the look on Zane’s face that began to worry the blue ninja.

“ Zane? Is everything okay?” Jay asked.

“ I just got a call from Keo.” The silver nindroid said, worry in his voice.

“ From Keo?” multiple voices asked at once.

“ Well, to be technical, it was a call from Lloyd’s phone, but Keo wished to… scold us for forgetting Lloyd’s birthday.”

No one knew how to respond to that. All they could do was look at each other. Even Nya had managed to stop talking as she processed what had been said. Poor Misako had to call her back to the phone before any noise was heard in the party room. That was all it took for someone else to break the stunned silence.

“ But… but we haven’t forgotten Lloyd’s birthday.” Jay whined. “ We wouldn’t be here if we had forgotten.”

“ That is true.” Zane nodded. “ But think, Jay. We all left the monastery, and Keo, in Lloyd’s care. And, aside from the fact that Lloyd rarely, if at all, wishes to celebrate his birthday, none of us wished him a ‘happy birthday’. What is startling, though, is the fact that none of us have told Keo that it’s Lloyd’s birthday and yet he has found out about it.”

“ So, not even Lloyd told him about his birthday?” Kai asked.

“ Apparently not. When I asked Lloyd about it after Keo handed back the phone, he told me that Keo found out by passing on a birthday message from his grandfather.”

“ But isn’t his grandfather…”

“ The First Spinjitzu Master, correct. But that’s not all.”

“ It’s not?” Jay was beginning to panic again. It was obvious in his voice.

Again, Zane nodded. “ Keo wants to join in the celebrations.”

This time, even Echo Zane looked worried. As soon as he had placed his little gift on the table by the wall (which Kai had told him would be for presents and the music player), he spun on his heels to look at his older brother.

“ But… but Keo cannot come here.” He worried. “ He is too sick to come out of the monastery. It would not be wise for him to come out here with the massive wound in his side. And he can barely eat anything. He is safer in the monastery.”

“ I know, brother.” Zane spoke in a calming voice, trying to calm not only his brother but Jay as well, who was mouthing at his fist in worry. “ And I told him that as well, even going as far as to tell him that the doctor would not advise leaving the comfort of the monastery. He did sound disappointed at not being able to leave his bedroom, though.”

“ I don’t blame him.” Kai muttered despite the worry he felt with what he was hearing. All eyes turned to Kai. “ What? If he is what Master Wu says he is, then he’d probably thrive in the open air. He’s probably hating being stuck inside and bed bound.”

“ I, uh… kinda agree with Kai.” Jay said meekly, rubbing at the back of his neck.

Sympathetic looks were a common sight on the faces of all those in the room after that admittance. True, it had only been a few days since Keo was allowed to leave the hospital, but he had been moved from one bed to another. Due to his health conditions, he could barely get out of bed now a days. And everyone hated to think what his life was like before being attacked.

It was Pixal who spoke next, having kept quiet since their arrival. “ We all know that it would do him some good to get out of the room every now and then, but with his energy levels constantly running low, it would be detrimental to his health to come here. Just like with introducing Echo Zane to the world beyond the monastery as well as to his new upgrades, we need to take things slowly with Keo. Take things at his speed. Also, we must take into account that he is getting worse. Until we get confirmation from the doctors, we can really only allow Keo short excursions to the courtyard to see his horse. For now, though, we must focus on Lloyd’s birthday party. Perhaps we can get some food put aside to take to Keo, if Cole was successful in obtaining permission from the doctor about doing such.”

“ I guess.” Jay sighed.

“ Hey,” Kai called, placing a hand on the blue ninja, “ if you want, we can put on a big party for Keo once he’s feeling better.”

“ Yeah, and we can go flying with him and take him to Mega Monster Amusement Park and bring him here for dinner later and…”

“ Let’s just get through this party first, Jay.” Nya said, finally off the phone to Misako. “ If we’re not bringing Keo here, then we need someone to go to the monastery to look after him.”

Jay seemed to calm down a bit when he heard that. It meant that it was time to get on the phone to his parents to see if they could look after Keo for them. It also meant that he was going to have to leave the party preparations in order to make sure his parents get to the monastery safely. Taking his phone out of his pocket, he overheard Nya talking with the others.

“ Misako is on her way here, now.” Nya was saying. “ She’s bringing over the party things, including the table cloths, not that there’s anything wrong with the ones you’ve got here, Skylor. It’s just, these are special embroidered tablecloths that Misako has been working on for quite a while now.”

“ It’s fine, Nya.” Skylor laughed.

“ Anyway, Misako and I were thinking of getting Lloyd to help put the groceries away. Act like nothing is wrong. The issue there would be getting Misako away from the monastery without Lloyd knowing.”

“ I could be of assistants there.” Zane spoke up. “ While I was talking with Keo, he described to me something his mother used to make for his father. Apparently, Keo’s father was born the same day as Lloyd, but they usually celebrated the day before. For his birthday, the family shared what is known to them and the Kalun people as Golden Cakes. As Keo couldn’t come here, he asked if we could serve Golden Cakes for Lloyd’s birthday. He even said that his mother kept a recipe in a cookbook he managed to salvage from the farm. I was thinking that maybe I could talk with Keo while Misako kept Lloyd busy. I would then be able to help her return to the party.”

Jay turned his attention away from the party preparations and over to his phone at that point. The ring tone had cut out to his mother answering the call.

“ Hey, Ma.” He greeted in reply to Edna’s warm ‘Hello’.

_“ Why hello, Jay, dear. It’s so good to hear from you. Why it’s been so long. How are you?”_

“ I’m fine, Ma. I, uh…”

_“ And the others? How are your friends? You’ve stopped bringing them to the junkyard. And what about dear, sweet Nya?”_

“ Everyone’s fine, Ma. We’ve just been busy what with saving the world and all that scary ninja stuff that we do. I didn’t want to drag you and Dad into our troubles, if you know what I mean.”

_“ Oh, of course, dear. First Spinjitzu Master knows that your father and I don’t wish anything bad to happen either because we dragged you and your friends away from your duties. Although, I would like to see you again sometime. Your father, too. I actually think he may need some help with his newest invention. You see, he’s trying to build a new security system for the junkyard, but he can’t quite seem to get it working right. I often find that it’s exploded on him and caught fire, so you can understand that it’s getting me a little worried.”_

“ Just hearing about it is getting me worried.” Jay admitted. “ I promise, I’ll come help you when I can. I just have a feeling it may be a few days before I can get there.”

 _“ Thank you, dearie. And I’m sure your father would appreciate it as well… if he wasn’t currently getting worked up over trying to reattach the head for the twentieth time.”_ You could hear the relief wash over Jay’s mother in her words.

“ Oh, that bad, huh?”

_“ I’m afraid so. But enough about some rusty bits of scrap metal. To what do I owe the pleasure of your call? Not that I don’t love it when I get to see you or even just hear from you.”_

“ Well, uh… do you remember when you last called, I said that I couldn’t go and visit because I had to help bring an injured boy back to the monastery? Keo?” Jay asked, rubbing at the back of his neck despite knowing that his mother couldn’t see it.

 _“ Why yes.”_ Edna recalled. _“ That was just a few days ago. Oh, I do hope the poor boy is alright.”_

“ To be honest, Ma, he’s not doing too good. Cole and Master Wu have had to go back to the hospital to talk with his doctor about further treatment plans and such. But that’s also why I’m calling. Keo still can’t leave the monastery without a ton of help. And he gets really tired really quickly. It doesn’t help that the other ninja and I are setting up a surprise party for Lloyd for his birthday.”

That seemed to gain Edna’s attention. _“ It’s Lloyd’s birthday? Oh, gosh. If I’d have known, I would have sent him something from your father and me. He is such a nice young lad.”_

“ Ma, please focus. What I’m asking is important.”

_“ Sorry, dear. Please continue.”_

Jay let loose a sigh he didn’t know he was holding back. “ Well, I was wondering if you could watch over Keo for us while we’re all away from the monastery. I know it’s a last minute request, but we hadn’t expected Keo to show up like he had or how bad he was. And we’ve been planning this surprise party for months. And I know you and Dad are busy over at the junkyard…”

 _“ Now that’s nonsense.”_ Edna huffed over the phone, startling her son slightly.

“ Sorry?”

_“ Now I know you and your friends like to make sure everything goes smoothly and all that, even if the world tries to make it so that it doesn’t, but your father and I would gladly stop whatever we were doing and come help you if we were able to. And this is something I’m more than sure we are capable of helping with. Not to mention your father can take care of the junkyard on his own for a little while if needed. He may be getting forgetful, but he’s not too far gone.”_

“ So, does that mean…?”

_“ Of course, I would love to help you, Jay dear. Although I may need some help getting to the monastery on time. I’m guessing your party is not being held at the monastery?”_

“ No. It’s being held at Skylor’s Noodle House.”

_“ Skylor? You mean that lovely young lady that Kai brought over to the junkyard a little while ago? You know, those two look like they would make a lovely couple, if I do say so myself. You should think about getting them together if they’re not already.”_

“ Ma, please, stay out of my friends’ love lives. It would be a huge favour for me if you did that.” The fact that Jay’s face was turning a bright red clearly told anyone who saw him that his mother had succeeded in embarrassing him yet again.

 _“ Oh, alright, dear.”_ Jay could practically hear the teasing in his mother’s voice. _“ Though, please, at least tell them I said hello.”_

Jay turned his head away from the phone for a few seconds, passing on his mother’s message. This was received with warm ‘hello’s and smiles from all in the room, which Jay quickly passed back to Edna. Once that was done, Jay quickly finished explaining (or at least tried to with his mother’s constant interrupting) what was going on. It was also arranged that if he couldn’t get out to her in time, he’d ask one of the other ninja to help. And he made her promise not to tell Lloyd anything to do with the surprise party.

By the time Jay finally got off the phone to his mother, Misako, Cole and Master Wu had all arrived and were helping with the final party preparations. Misako was talking plans with Zane in one corner, Master Wu was getting updated on the party preparations himself, and Cole was busying himself with setting up the sound system. It was clear from the look in the earth master’s eyes that he wasn’t happy with how things had turned out at the hospital.

“ So what’s the news?” Kai asked, noticing that Jay was placing his phone back in his pocket.

“ Aside from the fact that my Ma’s trying to set you and Skylor up together…” Jay started, gaining both confused and amused looks at the discovery. “ Yeah, I know. But she’s able to watch over Keo for the duration of the party. She’ll need a ride to and from the monastery, though, but she seems glad to be able to help. My dad’s probably going to be staying at the junkyard. Also, I told her that if I couldn’t make it to pick her up, I’d ask one of you to help.”

“ That could work in our favour.” Zane said from behind Jay.

Jay jumped so high in fright both Kai and Cole swore he could have touched the ceiling if he had only raised his hands above his head. And while most of the room’s inhabitants looked on with small smiles on their faces, clearly finding amusement in this, said older boys proceeded to let loose their laughter. His face going red once more, Jay took a deep breath and turned to face the titanium ninja.

“ Please don’t sneak up on me, Zane.” He breathed.

“ My apologies, brother.” Zane smiled meekly.

Jay ended up having to take a deep breath to settle himself down, leaving Nya to ask the question that was buzzing around in the heads of the gathered group.

“ What do you mean?” she asked the nindroid.

“ As you know, Misako and I have agreed to getting Lloyd to help with putting away the groceries in their respectful places. This would make it so that Lloyd is away from Keo. Meanwhile, I would go and pick up Mrs Walker and take her to the monastery. While Mrs Walker is talking with Lloyd about the details of looking after Keo, either Misako or myself could go and talk with Keo about finding this recipe. I would then sneak Misako out of the monastery and return here where we call Lloyd.” Zane explained.

“ But… wouldn’t you have to make the recipe once you have it?” Cole asked, finding a surprising flaw in Zane’s plan.

Zane froze for a second, analysing his plan again.

“ I’ve got it!” Jay shouted, throwing his hand up as he pointed to the ceiling. “ We could get Lloyd to pick up my mum while Misako puts the groceries away and Zane talks with Keo!”

“ That… could actually work.” Misako agreed.

“ And I could get my mum to stall Lloyd for, say, an hour as well.”

“ Of course, we would have to let Lloyd know what he is doing once Misako arrives home.” Zane stated.

And just like that, the other ninja found themselves excluded in the planning of how to get Keo’s recipe. A couple of times Nya, Pixal and even Kai tried to get one of their ideas into the fray, but Jay, Zane and Misako were too enthralled with their workings to even notice. It was, honestly, a little frustrating. But they were left alone to sort things out.

Although Cole did end up having to drag Kai away from the group before he decided he needed to physically barge into the conversation. With how frustrated the fiery teen was becoming, he knew he had to do something fast before Skylor ended up having to rebuild her noodle house again. The two moved over to the stereo system to try and calm down.

Pixal took that time to converse with Master Wu. Although the old spinjitzu master had gone around trying to sus out how everything was going concerning the party preparations, he had yet to determine what was happening with Echo Zane and his updates. So the Samurai took it upon herself to let him know when the copper android would be receiving his new arms in exchange for what the doctor had said about Keo.

Nya took this time to find out from Skylor how the party menu was coming along, in particular the birthday cake. Due to outside circumstances, Zane hadn’t been able to make Lloyd’s favourite ice cream cake. So, they had had to resort to ordering one from the nearby ice cream parlour. Thankfully _‘Zeezee Bear’s Frozen Fantasies’_ also happened to be Lloyd’s favourite ice cream franchise.

Eventually, Skylor had to return to her restaurant duties, leaving Nya to witness Echo Zane feeling a little left out and almost hiding under the presents table. How neither Cole nor her brother realised this was beyond her, as they were standing at the other end of the table, but she ignored it and coaxed the copper android out from hiding. The solution to making him feel wanted – get him to help set the tables.

The fire and earth ninja watched as Echo was led to the main banquet table and shown how to set the table. In fact, you could see just how hard the droid was trying not to get rust on the cutlery and glasses and even the elemental dragon embroidered tablecloths Misako had made. It was, undeniably, a cute sight to behold. Especially when Echo had insisted on wearing gloves to do the deed.

“ You know. He reminds me of Zane a little. When I first met him.” Cole stated.

“ Really?” Kai turned to face the slightly older boy.

“ Yeah. Obviously minus the rust issue, but Zane was always willing to please. Quiet and clueless, but also meticulous in where things were placed, how things were cleaned, that sort of thing. In fact, a little more obsessive about things than Echo is now. Jay and I managed to slow him down a bit by the time you arrived on the scene.”

“ No offence, but I find that hard to imagine.”

“ Oh, Zane was still just as quirky, so you didn’t miss much when it came to that.”

“ I know he did odd things before, but I’m kind of glad to know I wasn’t the only one he did _really_ odd things around. Like, for example, sitting in the fridge.”

Cole smiled at the memory of how naïve their friend had been. “ Yeah, Jay got the same shock you did when Zane first arrived at the monastery. To this day, I still reckon people in Jamanakai village would have been able to hear Jay’s scream.”

“ Oh man, that would have been a sight.”

The earth master turned to face his friend as Kai’s small chuckles of laughter reached his ears. For the second time since hearing about what was going on with Keo, he felt his face break into a smile. And, even with the memories playing in his mind combining with the day’s more happier events, he was beginning to believe that things could turn out well in the end.

“ Looks like I’ve managed to calm you down.” Kai’s smirking voice penetrated his thoughts. “ Wasn’t your intention to calm me down before I did something to Jay and Zane?”

“ Okay, you got me.” The earth ninja sighed, a slight laugh to his voice.

“ What’s bugging ya?”

“ Aside from what’s going on with Keo?”

“ Yes. Aside from what’s going on with the kid. As much as we all hate what’s going on with him at the moment, and the fact that we can’t bring him here to celebrate, we have to think happy thoughts for the rest of the day. As soon as midnight hits, you can worry all you want.”

“ As soon as we get back to the monastery, you mean.”

Kai rolled his eyes, but placed a hand on Cole’s shoulder nonetheless. “ You drive a hard bargain, friend.”

Cole just smirked at him. And to be honest, Kai did not like the look of that smirk. It generally meant that trouble was soon to follow. True, Cole was the type of guy who was more likely to stop trouble that get into it… but there was the odd occasion.

“ Okay, what have you signed me up for?”

“ What makes you think I signed you up for anything?”

“ That look on your face.”

All Cole could do was shrug. But still…

“ Okay, I’ll get serious. Out of all of us, you are the closet to Lloyd. Do you have any clue on why he hates his birthday?”

The fire ninja barely supressed a groan from emerging at the question. To be honest, he knew the question was coming. Every couple of days for the past two weeks, both he and Nya had been constantly badgered by Cole and Jay about anything they knew on Lloyd’s dislike for his birthday. To make matters worse, it happened every year since they found out when the green ninja’s birthday was. And the answer was just the same now as it was the last time he was asked.

“ I have no idea.” He practically growled out. “ And I keep telling you that. Jay as well. All I know is that he was born on a leap day and that he hates his birthday. That’s everything. And you know that’s everything because it’s the exact same information that you know. Why are you asking me this again?”

“ Because I want to check the playlist with you in case there was anything that could possibly ruin the night.” Cole admitted. “ I finished working out the playlist while I was at the hospital.”

With that said, the earth ninja handed over the Borg-pod that was open to that night’s party song list. Kai took it and had a quick peek at the songs on the list.

Familiar songs from not only the ninjas’ favourite bands but also ones that he had heard in passing Lloyd’s bedroom instantly showed themselves. And they were, thankfully, all songs that he knew weren’t depressing in anyway. First Spinjitzu Master knew Lloyd liked to listen to some of the more depressing songs every time he got himself into a funk. But what really got Kai confused was the fact that he could see some of Jay’s up-beat, motivational songs on the list.

“ ‘ _Celebration’? ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’? ‘Everything Is Awesome’?”_ the fire ninja questioned. “ Did you go through Jay’s playlist?”

“ Maybe.” Cole sheepishly looked away.

“ Why would you add some of Jay’s songs?”

“ Because the other songs in Lloyd’s playlist are all kind of depressing. I should know. I’ve listened to some of them myself.”

Kai chose to ignore that last bit of information. If it ever came up again, he’d deal with it then. For now…

“ Did you raid anyone else’s playlist?” He asked.

Admittedly, Cole had to think for a few minutes. Turned out he hadn’t; he’d just raided Jay’s in an attempt to help brighten the mood. Even so, with Kai’s approval of the song list, the earth ninja finished setting up the sound system. He even allowed the music to play for a little while, both as a way to test that there was nothing wrong with the sound system and to help get everyone in the birthday spirit.

Unfortunately, within five minutes of the music starting, Jay had to start panicking again. This time, it was over presents. Apparently, he had just realised what that lone, little green box was that Echo Zane had carried into the room. It took a good ten minutes for Nya to calm him down. Echo was even willing to share his present to Lloyd if it helped.

That was when Kai remembered something extremely important. And it had to do with the birthday presents. Even though everyone had gotten their own presents for Lloyd, according to Jay’s party planner, Kai was supposed to have gotten them from the villa where they were being kept away from Lloyd’s prying eyes. The issue, Kai had forgotten about that particular job.

Needless to say, as soon as Kai remembered what he had to do, he was charging out of the building like little demons were after him. Jay’s panicked voice followed close behind as he called out the fire ninja’s name. Not long afterwards, Skylor returned to see how everything was going, a confused look on her face.

“ Um…” She started, not sure how to ask her question.

“ Kai forgot to get the presents.” Nya explained as if it was a common occurrence around the ninja. And knowing who the ninja were, it was unsurprising.

“ He… what?”

The look on the Master of Amber’s face when she heard that clearly told Nya that she obviously thought the worst of the presents. And Nya had to admit, it sounded a lot worse than it was given the situation. Even so, she couldn’t help the small smile from emerging on her face.

“ It’s not as bad as you think. We do have presents for Lloyd. Kai just forgot to pick them up from the villa on his way here. We were keeping them there so that Lloyd didn’t find them.”

Skylor’s confusion didn’t exactly clear up after that. True, she was relieved that Lloyd did get to have presents for his surprise birthday, and she really shouldn’t be surprised that someone forgot something, but since when did the ninja own a villa? Once more, she voiced her confusion.

“ That would be mine.” Jay piped up. Apparently, he was done panicking about presents.

“ No offence, but since when did you own a villa?”

“ It was part of my inheritance.”

That confused Skylor even more. “ But weren’t you just talking to your mother? About your father?”

At that, Jay raised a hand to the back of his neck. “ Yeah, funny thing that. I was, actually, adopted. And my birth father kept me in his will for some reason. But enough about that. Do you have any games we could play in here? You know, for the party?”

Nya had to intervene when she heard that question. “ Jay, I thought we agreed to no games for this birthday party.”

“ Just one?” the blue ninja practically begged.

If he was going for a change of subject, Skylor was pretty sure that he had succeeded. Although still confused about the whole adoption thing, she knew that it was none of her business. Instead, she had a business to run… and apparently an argument to break up. How these people were getting anywhere in the party preparations was amazing, what with forgotten presents and arguments over party games.

In the end, Skylor ended up having to place a hand each on the shoulders of the two arguing ninja. And, once she had their attention, she asked to see Jay’s plans and the reason behind the surprise party. With everything that was going on, it was no wonder she had forgotten the exact reason. After all it had been about a week since she was asked if they could host the party at the Noodle Shop.

However, after learning that they were holding a surprise party for an elemental master who hated his birthday… yeah, Skylor was wondering just what she was getting herself into. She figured she’d be lucky if she even had a restaurant left by the end of the night, let alone a boyfriend.

But one thing she could agree on was that Lloyd probably wouldn’t want any games played this birthday. The smile that emerged on Nya’s face when the Master of Amber voiced her opinions clearly told Jay that he had lost the argument. There would be no games played this birthday.

“ Besides,” Skylor noted, hoping to explain to Jay the reason behind her choice, “ you wouldn’t want to freak Lloyd out on his first party. Ease him into the party idea, Jay.”

Jay looked back down at the list he had pulled out of his pocket to show Skylor. He had already diverted from the list a number of times. The cake was originally supposed to be made by Zane, but with Echo Zane’s appointment being the same day, the ice ninja had had to order in an ice cream cake instead. And then there was the arrival of Keo throwing a massive spanner in the works. He couldn’t help the sigh that managed to escape his lips.

“ Everything’s going to work out just fine, Jay. You know that.” Nya’s surprisingly calm voice urged him to look up at the two young women in front of him.

“ Yeah, but… maybe Skylor’s right.” The blue ninja couldn’t help but sigh. “ Maybe I shouldn’t have planned a surprise birthday party.”

“ And exactly how else do you think we’d be able to celebrate Lloyd’s birthday without putting together a surprise party? You know he hides on this day. Even more so on his actual birthday.”

It was true. Lloyd did tend to run and hide from everyone on the two days that the ninja associated with his birthday. And the exact reason behind why he did so drove everyone mental. His mother and uncle had some ideas, but neither would indulge the other teenagers in what those ideas were. So getting a hold of the boy was near impossible.

“ Don’t worry about it Jay.” Nya’s voice penetrated Jay’s thoughts yet again. “ Like I said before, everything’s going to be fine. Kai’s finally remembered to bring the presents over, the tables are laid out and set properly, Cole’s got the music working, and the room looks like its nicely decorated.”

“ Not to mention, the ice cream parlour just dropped off the cake and it’s now in the freezer downstairs.” Skylor added.

“ Everything is going smoothly. All that has to be done is you let your mother know that Lloyd will be picking her up and taking her to the monastery to look after Keo, Lloyd getting told that he needs to pick her up, and Zane getting the recipe and ingredients for those cake things that Keo wants to add to the party. We may have had a few hiccups earlier, but your birthday plan is working.”

“ Alright. Yeah. Your right.” Jay muttered almost to himself.

That was when both girls knew that the lightning ninja’s panic was going to settle down from here on out. And it was with that knowledge that Jay found himself wrapped up in Nya’s embrace. Everything was going to be fine. He just needed to make a phone call and then he could wait at the Noodle House with the others until the moment that Lloyd arrived.

Pulling away from the hug, he gave the girls a thankful smile and pulled out his mobile phone once more.

* * *

Okay, Lloyd was sure that the others were planning something. True, if Kai was at the Noodle House helping Skylor, then there was the high possibility that he’d be there all day. The others, however, had no excuse to _not_ be home by now. It was nearly one forty-five in the afternoon. Someone should have been back by now.

Admittedly, his mother had left about an hour later than the others had (the others had left between eight-thirty and nine o’clock that morning) and so was probably on her way home, but at least Pixal and the Zanes should have returned by now. Was there something wrong with Echo Zane’s upgrade that was keeping them at Borg Towers? Did something go wrong at the hospital and that was why Cole and Uncle Wu had yet to return? And how long exactly did Jay or Nya say their date was going to be?

All those questions and more buzzed around his head, each with a foreboding sense that something could have happened to his friends. And he could name a number of enemies that the ninja had who would want revenge for one reason or another. Not to mention the various scenarios that they could have gotten involved in and that didn’t include any revenge seeking bad guys.

The feeling of a puff of warm air being blown into his face snapped Lloyd out of his downward spiral and forced him to look up from the hem of his ninja gi... and he nearly leapt backwards at the sight of a large black muzzle blocking most of his view.

“ Gah! Horse!” He chided. “ Quit sneaking up on people like that! It’s almost like you’re more ninja than the actual ninja.”

For a reply, the horse took a step back and turned its head slightly so that it looked like he was staring into the green ninja’s soul. It was a creepy look that required little effort from the horse, but it seemed to have found it the most effective for getting the ninja to do what it wanted. The sad thing was, that look reminded each of the ninja of the demanding look that Master Wu often gave them when they refused to do things.

“ Okay, what do you need, Makkar?”

Makkar proceeded to spin once in a circle and pointed his head in the direction of Keo’s room. Exactly how the horse knew where his rider’s room was located, Lloyd had no clue. But he took it as a sign that something was up with Keo.

“ You think Keo needs something?”

Another snort to the face, this time accompanied by a flick of the tail.

The message couldn’t be any clearer than that. Lloyd stood from where he was sitting against the golden dragon in the middle of the courtyard

“ Okay, I’m going.” He told the horse that had only just started walking in circles around the dragon statue. “ Stay out of trouble.”

If a horse could give a look that clearly feigned innocence, Lloyd was sure he had just received one. But he ignored it and made his way into the monastery building, picking up his towel and water bottle as he went past. While Keo slept, he had decided to brush up on his basic katas. Not to mention it gave him something to do for the last half hour. But now it seemed like it was back to work.

He made a couple of quick detours to the kitchen and laundry room to put his things away before focussing his attention on Keo’s room. And, now that he was inside, he could hear what Makkar had been able to hear before him. The familiar sound of Keo’s bell ringing was bouncing down the hallways in an attempt to lead him to the boy with its graceful melody.

It seemed to work, too, because with what felt like a blink of an eye, Lloyd was standing in front of the door leading into Keo’s room. Gently and quietly, he opened the door and peeked inside. Keo looked back at him in pain and confusion.

“ Everything okay, Keo?” He asked, stepping into the room fully.

Keo shook his head slightly, though it was more to try and clear his head than as a negative response to Lloyd’s question. Still, that movement alone was starting to worry the green ninja. And that worry only grew when the injured boy in front of him managed to sit himself on the edge of the bed in preparation to get up.

“ Keo, talk to me. What do you need?” he urged.

“ I need to use the bathroom again,” Keo sighed once he had managed to catch his breath, “ but I don’t want to burden you on your birthday… well, your celebration day.”

Lloyd couldn’t help the sigh that escaped his mouth as he made his way over to the bed. “ Keo… thank you for the concern, but it’s really not necessary. I’m here to help you… and, right now, that means helping you get to the bathroom. Now let’s focus on that and take this nice and easy, okay?”

Keo eyed Lloyd for a few, long seconds. It was almost like he was trying to read something in his soul… or something along those lines. And it was a little off-putting. But then the look was gone, replaced by the waiting need for help to move. So Lloyd was forced to squash his unease for the current moment as he helped Keo up onto his feet and out of the room.

Once again, the trip to the bathroom was a slow one, full of concentration and care. Yet, not once did either of the two throw out a complaint of any sort. And it was much the same on the way back to Keo’s room, as well. Unfortunately, there was a nagging feeling in the back of Lloyd’s mind that warned him of the look Keo had sent him. It almost felt like he was going to be interrogated by the boy for some reason.

And he had a sinking feeling that it was going to be about his birthday.

Of course, that feeling had to be confirmed as soon as the injured boy was safely back in his bed and had taken another sip of Master Wu’s healing tea.

“ Why it is not necessary? That I don’t want to be a burden to you on your celebration day?” Keo asked before the ninja could move away from the bed.

“ Because I don’t mind looking after you. Even if it is the day I tend to… I mean, I celebrate my birthday. You don’t have to worry about me.” Lloyd replied. He hoped that his little slip up wasn’t noticed.

“ But… you seem sad. It is because the other ninja didn’t remember your birthday?”

That stopped Lloyd. Was he sad that his family had seemingly forgotten about his birthday? Possibly. After all the attempts to celebrate his birthday in the past, for everyone to suddenly go quiet about it whenever he was around… it was a bit off-putting. Even more so than that look Keo was giving him earlier. But, thinking on it, it also led into his earlier assumptions that the others were all planning something. And it was that that worried him… especially if the mastermind behind it all was Jay.

To be honest, Lloyd was almost sure the mastermind was Jay. And not just because of the fact that the lightning master had been rather jumpy around him for the past week. Almost every other time he went into any room where the others were talking, Jay would be the one doing most of the talking (no surprises there, actually) and would hide something from his view. Only the First Spinjitzu Master knew what that boy was planning, so it was no wonder that Lloyd felt a little fear whenever his mind came across the subject.

But Keo was wating for an answer. That much was clear to Lloyd when he dragged his mind from his thoughts and looked at the boy’s face. And he knew from experience how frustrating it was to not get an answer to your questions. The only problem there was that he wasn’t exactly sure on _how_ to answer.

With a sigh, he gave the best answer he could. “ I don’t think I’m sad as such about that. More cautious and confused. Usually the others are trying to get me to celebrate my birthday. This year, though, they’ve barely talked to me about it. And it has me worried that they might be up to something.”

“ So you don’t like your birthday?” Keo asked, clearly trying to understand.

“ I’ve… had some bad experiences.”

“ Are they as bad as having people think that you’re creepy for having your birthday the same day as _Azhak na Hella?”_

“ Um…”

Lloyd had no clue as to what Keo had just said. And it must have shown because the injured boy gave him an apologetic smile.

“ My mother called it the Day of the Departed.” He explained. “ But the other kids in the village liked to play mean tricks on me and some of the smaller kids. Me especially. They cared more about _Azhak na Hella_ than they did someone’s birthday.”

“ I guess… I guess our experiences are similar.”

After all, it did seem like both he and Keo had been bullied over the day their birthdays landed on. The memories brought forth by that conclusion, however, struck the green ninja hard. Memories of childish attacks on age and the fact that he never received any birthday presents rushed, unbidden, to the front of his mind. Childish fears of constant rejection that he now knew were unfounded followed close behind. Lloyd sighed as he silently attempted to force those thoughts back into the depths of his mind.

“ If you’re worried about the other ninja, I don’t think they would do anything bad by you.” Keo’s voice penetrated his thoughts, making him look up at the boy.

“ For someone who has only been here a week, and with the amount of pain that you must be in, your quite perceptive, Keo.” Lloyd pointed out. “ The others wouldn’t purposefully do anything to hurt me, you’re right. Sadly, everyone has their demons. And sometimes I think that I’m the one who has the most.”

“ Your _Gikaru_ is back and he says that everything will turn out well in the end. And if it helps, I won’t judge you. I think it’s kind of cool that you were born on the Day of the Golden Dragon. It means that you’re special… well, so say my father’s people.”

At that moment, a yawn broke through the young teenager to the point where his whole body shook. The whimper of pain that followed, though was of no surprise to Lloyd, sent worry streaking through the elemental leader. Without a word, he carefully helped the boy lie more comfortably on the bed. Keo didn’t resist either, though he did turn a confused but sleepy eye on him.

“ I think you should try and get some more rest. Focus on trying to get better.” The green ninja said gently once he had straightened up.

Keo apparently didn’t need telling twice because his eyes quickly slid closed and he returned to his fitful slumber. Quietly, Lloyd left the room and made his way down the hallway, his own room his next destination. With his thoughts the way they were currently, he figured maybe he would be more successful in quelling them if he kept his mind busy. And he had a good book waiting for him to finish reading sitting on his desk.

It was a fairly interesting book about the life of a black horse from the horse’s perspective. Pixal had lent it to him a few months back, but with all the distractions in his life, Lloyd hadn’t gotten to read much of it. So, as he positioned himself so that he was comfortable on his bed and opened the book to the marked page, he hoped that he wouldn’t be disturbed for a little while.

“ Lloyd, I’m home!” The sound of his mother’s voice echoed through the monastery.

And it seemed he wasn’t going to get the chance to read his book after all. With a sigh he placed the bookmark back in its place between the pages and almost dragged himself out of his room.

Now that his mother was home, there were two places that she could be. The first would be the hanger, where all the ninja vehicles were kept, including Misako’s car that was most likely filled with groceries. The other place she could be was the kitchen. Lloyd’s feet took him to the kitchen where he found Misako straightening herself out from placing a couple of grocery bags on the floor by the counter.

“ Ah, there’s my birthday boy.” Misako smiled once she turned around and noticed Lloyd in the doorway.

“ Mum…” Lloyd stressed the word, an obvious warning to his mother despite not being able to let any more words accompany it out of his mouth.

“ I know, I know. But you can’t deny what day it is. Anyway, can you help me bring in the groceries?”

“ Sure thing.”

That was how Lloyd found himself helping his mother bring in the groceries and putting them away. The weird thing, though, was that as soon as Misako had told him that she was taking the laundry things and putting them away, she disappeared. With a job that should have taken only five minutes, somehow the woman had managed to turn it into a twenty-minute job.

Yeah, something strange was definitely going on with the inhabitants of the spinjitzu monastery.

“ Maybe all this strangeness will disappear if I just tell the others why I hate my birthday.” Lloyd muttered to the tin of corn he held in his hands.

“ I’m sure that will help a lot.” Misako’s voice echoing through the room almost made him drop the tin as he reached to place it in the cupboard.

“ Okay, who else is going to randomly pop up around me today?”

“ I’m sorry, Lloyd. I thought you could hear me coming down the hallway.”

“ It’s alright. Today just seems to be full of surprises for me.”

Misako couldn’t help but mutter under her breath. Lloyd’s ears didn’t quite catch it, but it sounded like she had said something about having ‘no idea’. Exactly what she was talking about, he had no clue. But a small voice in the back of his mind warned him that maybe it was wiser for him not to know. It was that same part of his brain which urged him to focus on the task at hand and continue putting the groceries away.

Lloyd did just that… until he turned to his next bag and found that the job was finished. Apparently, his mother had taken that long in the laundry that he hadn’t realised that he was nearly finished. And then, while he had been distracted by his thoughts, she had finished putting the last couple of tins away.

“ Guess I’ll go check on Keo again, make sure he’s okay.” He muttered to himself after a few seconds of gathering his thoughts.

And, of course, it had to be just as he was turning to make his way out of the kitchen that Misako had to stop his plans once again.

“ He’s doing alright, Lloyd.” She called. “ I checked on him while I was working in the laundry. He was still sleeping… although he was whimpering about something in his sleep.”

“ Maybe I should give him some more medicine.”

“ When was the last time he had his medicine?”

“ About…” Lloyd checked the kitchen clock, “ two hours ago, before I went outside to do some basics training.”

Misako gave a nod of her head. “ It’s still too soon, then. His next dose will be around dinner time. Try not to worry too much about him. I know you worry about him just as much as Cole does.”

“ Can you blame us? He’s just… it’s… that wound he has is so massive.”

This time Misako placed a comforting hand on her son’s shoulder, silently making him look her in the eye. “ I know it’s scary. He’s not that much younger than you are now, after all. But he needs his rest if he’s ever going to fight whatever is wrong with him. For now, try to think about the more positive things that he could look forward to once he’s feeling better. And while you’re at it, try thinking about positive things that you can share with the others about your birthday.”

Lloyd heaved a sigh he hadn’t known was building up. Of course his mother would turn things back to his birthday. Even with something as serious as the health of a child. It had to have been something about this day. There was just one problem, though. How could he think of positive things about his birthday when all he knew was negative?

“ I’m going to get some things from my study.” Lloyd’s mother said, pulling her son from his thoughts. “ I was talking to Mrs Walker at the shopping centre earlier about some projects I’ve been working on in my spare time. She seemed quite interested so I invited her over. I may have mentioned that today was the day we celebrated your birthday, as well.”

“ Really mum?” Lloyd turned to Misako with a look bordering betrayal.

“ I’m sorry. But Mrs Walker has requested you pick her up from the junkyard. She muttered something about a quick gift.”

The streak of horror that went through Lloyd at that moment, though slight, made him question just what kind of day this day was turning into. If Jay’s mother had found out about his birthday, only his grandfather knew exactly what she planned on giving him for a gift. Most likely it would be some quickly-put-together gift made out of scrap from her junkyard. And that was beside the point that Mrs Walker had specifically requested he pick her up from the junkyard to bring her to the monastery.

“ Alright.” He sighed, resigning himself to the events of the day. “ Do I have a time to be there by?”

This time it was Misako’s time to turn to the kitchen clock. “ We arranged that I’d send you off once we were done with the groceries.”

“ Okay. I’ll head off in a few minutes.”

“ Thank you, Lloyd. I’ll make sure to keep an eye on Keo while you’re gone.”

Lloyd’s only reply was to bow his head slightly before heading back into his room to make sure that he was well presented for Mrs Walker. Nothing too fancy, of course. Definitely no tuxedos or the like, but he did get out of the casual gear he had been wearing and into something more fitting for guests.

It wasn’t long before he was standing in the hanger in front of his various vehicles, trying to figure out which one he would take that was comfortable enough for passengers. Okay, so he really only had two main vehicles in the hangar. He didn’t count the Golden Master Mech or his elemental dragon as vehicles. But the choice essentially came down to the recovered and fixed _Ninja Nightcrawler_ and the multi-terrain vehicle the _Destiny’s Shadow._

Really, there was no contest. The _Nightcrawler_ was a one-seated, supped up sports car. The _Destiny’s Shadow_ was a two seated, flying ship that had five transformative reconfigurations. Therefore, there was only one choice to make… even if Lloyd’s eyes constantly flickered over to the returned _Nightcrawler._

Shaking his head to clear it, Lloyd hopped into the _Destiny’s Shadow_ and took off out of the hangar. His next stop was Ed and Edna’s Scrap and Junk. He just never realised that someone was staring out of one of the monastery windows, watching the small flying ship disappear into the clouds.

Zane sighed as he witnessed Lloyd take off. Things were starting to move closer to the time where Lloyd would discover the reason for everyone’s secrecy. And that meant that he only had a couple of hours to get the recipe for Keo’s Golden Cakes, gather the needed ingredients and make them in time for the party. But with Edna promising to delay the green ninja for at least an hour, he had to stay positive that the golden cakes would get done… especially seeing that it would be seen as Keo’s last minute contribution.

“ Has Lloyd left yet?” Misako’s voice asked softly, causing the titanium ninja to turn to the study room door.

“ He just left.” Zane confirmed.

“ I was starting to worry he wouldn’t go. I think he’s starting to catch on to the fact that something’s going on.”

“ Hopefully the surprise can last.”

Zane made his way to the door, a glint in his eye that made Misako question just who he was trying to give that hope to; her or himself? And to be completely honest, with the conversations and planning that had gone down, she didn’t blame him for trying to keep up with what Jay had planned for Lloyd. First Spinjitzu Master knew that if Lloyd were to discover the surprise party, he could very well get angry at them all.

And Lloyd would not be the only one hurt.

It was true that everyone would be upset by the fact that Lloyd wouldn’t enjoy his birthday. But with all the planning and worrying that Jay was currently doing, there was no doubt that he would also be hurt. After all, just like with what had happened for Zane’s Day of Creation, Jay seemed to be putting his heart and soul into making sure this birthday was perfect for his friend.

Not to mention all those sleepless nights where any one of the other monastery inhabitants had found Jay fretting over birthday plans he had formulated. And the fact that it had taken both Kai and Nya to get the ninja of lightning to realise that a massive surprise party, with tons of guests and party games and such, would not make Lloyd happy or comfortable… it was a wonder that Lloyd hadn’t started to query what was going on much earlier than this.

Zane remembered clearly the night that Keo had come to the monastery for after-hospital treatment. Although Jay had been a slightly calmer version of his usual self around the boy, come nightfall, he was in hysterics. It had taken Kai to calm him down and suggest the party move to Skylor’s Noodle House.

So it was fair to say that if Lloyd was upset by even one thing in the party, the titanium ninja feared that it may upset Jay as well.

But he had to be positive. Things were in place to have a ‘minimalist’ surprise party that would, hopefully, ease Lloyd into the idea of liking his birthday. There was even time to add a few last-minute treats in, like Keo’s golden cakes and the small gift that Edna really had planned for Lloyd. Zane remembered that rather interesting conversation with Jay’s mother well. After all, who wouldn’t be worried if the person you were talking to suddenly called over their shoulder something to do with a broken waffle iron?

Zane sincerely hoped that Lloyd was not getting a broken waffle iron for his birthday. He wasn’t sure who would be more embarrassed, Lloyd or Jay.

Before he knew it, both he and Misako had found their way to Keo’s door in silence. Neither of them had needed the other to remind them of what had to be done or even to guide them to the boy. They just seemed to instinctively know what was needed. Zane hadn’t even realised that Misako had disappeared into her room during the walk to collect a blanket that he knew she had been working on during the fiasco with the Never Realm. But when he turned to her after arriving at the room, there she was with the multi-coloured blanket.

Silently, the titanium ninja opened the door and peered inside. Keo was sleeping, but the slight shiver he gave off every now and then told of either the pain that travelled through his body or else the cold that was beginning to seep into the room. Zane hated to interrupt the boy’s sleep. And, judging by the look on Misako’s face, so did she. But they both knew it had to happen if they were going to get the recipe in time.

With a sigh, Zane made his way over to the side of the bed and gently placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“ Keo.” He called. “ Keo, wake up.”

Keo woke with a groan. Bleary eyes tried to focus on the silver form beside him. After a few seconds, he seemed to realise that what he was seeing was not a dream, so he shook his head to wake himself further. The confusion, however, remained even as a yawn forced his body to shudder in pain.

“ Yes?” He asked sleepily.

“ I am going to make those golden cakes for Lloyd’s birthday like you asked, but I need the recipe.” Zane explained as gently as he could. “ Do you remember where you put it?”

“ Golden Cakes? Lloyd’s birthday?”

“ Yes, Keo. Today is the day we celebrate Lloyd’s birthday. You called me earlier expressing your… dislike of us forgetting his birthday.”

“ Wait? Zane?”

“ Yes. That is me.”

The weakened boy instantly tried to sit up, his sleep addled brain finally remembering what was going on. Upon seeing what Keo was trying to do, Zane was instantly trying to help him into a more comfortable sitting position. The wound in the boy’s side was still clearly causing him pain, but if there was one thing the ninja were discovering about the boy, it was that he was determined to do things for himself.

And this was no exception. Keo would have continued trying to get out of bed if it weren’t for the fact that Zane refused to let him. But his attempts were weak, and he knew they were, so it was with an almost defeated sigh that the young boy gave up trying to get out of the bed.

“ In the saddle bags. The big, right one. That’s where I put the recipe book. I don’t remember if it’s the dark leather book or the leather book with the gem in the middle of it, though.” He said tiredly.

“ That’s okay. I’ll find it. Is there anything else you remember about the recipe book?” Zane prodded a little further for information.

Keo thought for a minute, trying to remember the last time he took the book out of the saddle bag.

 _“ Karu’s_ book was written in his language. _Kila’s_ recipe book was mostly in Ninjargon. I think _Karu_ had the front cover letters done in gold or some colour.”

“ I will find it, don’t worry.”

Zane then got up and made his way over to the saddle and saddle bags that had been placed on the opposite side of the room. Behind him, he heard Misako enter the room and explain to Keo what was going to happen while everyone was away from the monastery. The weak call of triumph from the boy when he heard what the doctor had said about a change in diet made even the nindroid smile.

And, if he was being honest, Zane whole-heartedly agreed with Keo’s want for food that was not porridge. He and the other ninja (minus Lloyd who had woken late that morning) had shared his usual porridge mix for breakfast. It had been Jay’s idea, and it was okay for a meal every once in a while. But they had all sympathised with the fact that Keo had been stuck with the stuff for every meal since being let out of the hospital.

The memory was put out of his head, however, when he opened the saddle bag and pulled out the two leather-bound books that had been packed within. As Keo has said, one book was stained, dark leather while the other was a lighter coloured leather covering with a shining lapis lazuli stone centred on the cover. It was that gemstone book which housed Ninjargon letters engraved in gold, the words _‘Mana Kalun’s Recipe Book’_ serving as the sign Zane had been looking for to guide him to the correct book.

What was odd, though, was that the plain leather book Zane held in his other hand seemed to be getting heavier than what it should have been. If he didn’t know better, he honestly would have thought that the book was trying to tell him something. As it was, Zane chose to focus on the more important matter at hand; the recipe book. Tomorrow, he could try and understand the strange feeling he was getting just looking at the book. Carefully, he placed the second book back in the saddle bag and began flicking through the pages of the recipe book.

Essentially being a notebook, the recipe book had no contents page. So it took a few precious minutes of searching for the Golden Cakes recipe than Zane had intended. However, luck seemed to be on the titanium ninja’s side as the first of the newer, translated recipes just so happened to be the one he was looking for. Even better, the recipe seemed to be a quick recipe to make. With that thought, he quickly scanned the page, imprinting to memory all the ingredients and steps needed to make the small polenta cakes, before returning the book to its place alongside the plain leather book in the saddle bag.

“ You’re not going to take the book with you?” Keo asked softly, noticing Zane stand up without the recipe book in hand.

“ No.” Zane admitted. “ If I remove it and Lloyd realises it’s gone, he may get suspicious about what’s going on. Even if he doesn’t actually go to the saddle bag. I also do not wish to lose or damage the book by accident.”

“ But how are you going to make the golden cakes?”

“ I have taken a picture of the recipe and will use that as my guide. There is no need to fear. But now I must get going. Lloyd will be back soon, and I don’t want him to see me before the party or it will ruin the surprise.”

“ Oh.”

Misako brushed the hair out of Keo’s face, noticing the clammy feel of his skin as her fingers brushed across his forehead. “ Don’t you worry, Keo. I’ll still be here until Lloyd arrives. And both Zane and I will make sure you get some golden cakes as well.”

“ Thank you.” Keo smiled, his eyelids getting heavy once again.

“ There’s no need for that. But is there anything I can do for you now?”

Zane didn’t hear the answer. He was already heading out the door as he heard Keo’s reply to getting some golden cakes after the party. After all, he needed to hurry if he was going to make them on time. And Misako, despite how she had left Lloyd when he was younger, was quite capable of caring for Keo now in his time of need. So, with his senses on high alert for Lloyd in the case that he had had to turn back for any reason this early on the trip to the junkyard, Zane made his way out of the monastery and summoned his elemental dragon.

Makkar, who was watching the nindroid hurry out the door, merely snorted as the dragon was called forth. It was clear from the motion that he wasn’t fazed at all by the sudden appearance of the ethereal creature. But he made sure to keep out of the way as Zane urged the winged beast into the air and back towards New Ninjago City, something that the titanium ninja was thankful for. The last thing Misako or even Edna needed to deal with was a panicking horse.

* * *

Lloyd landed the _Destiny’s Shadow_ just outside of Ed and Edna’s Scrap and Junk. It had been a little while since he had been here. Jay had dragged the team to the junkyard about two weeks before the mess that was the Never-Realm claiming that he wanted company in looking after the place while his parents had gone off on a weekend holiday to a beach resort near the city.

Okay, so Jay had asked Nya to accompany him and Kai had the bright idea to invite himself over after having overheard the question. How he, Zane and Cole managed to get roped into the trip, Lloyd still wasn’t sure. But he clearly remembered setting off the security system after going for a midnight walk in the Sea of Sand. Lloyd was ashamed to admit that he was the main reason the Walkers needed a new alarm system.

“ Ah, now there he is!” A friendly voice called as Lloyd walked through the gates.

The green ninja looked up at the call, noticing Ed Walker waving half of a waffle iron in the air at him.

“ You were expecting me?” He asked as he got closer to the older man.

“ Of course we were. Didn’t your mother or someone tell you that my dear Edna was invited to the monastery?”

“ Well, yeah. That’s why I’m here, actually. My mother sent me to come pick up Mrs Walker. Do you know where she is?”

Ed slapped his free hand over Lloyd’s shoulder, leading him towards the trailer that was their home. In the back of his mind, Lloyd hoped that the new grease stains would wash off. He liked this particular shirt, after all, and would hate it if he had to throw it away so soon after buying it.

“ Why, last I checked, my Edna was in the trailer whipping up a quick present for ya.” The old man was saying.

“ Wha… present? What for?” Lloyd almost stuttered the question out.

At the look on the younger boy’s face, Ed couldn’t help the laughter that easily escaped his lips. It was a look that he could only describe as a ‘deer caught in headlights’ look. Apparently, Lloyd hadn’t expected them to know about his birthday.

“ Your mother told Edna that she was planning a birthday dinner for you for tonight. That was why she was at the shops. Edna told me and, well, we can’t just let you go without giving you a little something. You’re a nice boy, after all. And a friend of Jay’s. So we just had to get you something. I just hope that Jay doesn’t mind that we went searching through some of his things that he left behind in search of any ideas on what to quickly whip up for ya.”

Lloyd could do nothing but follow Mr Walker into his home, still worrying slightly about being given anything from him and his wife. He honestly wasn’t expecting anything from them except maybe a ‘happy birthday’. And that was despite being told that there was a small gift waiting for him from the junkyard owners.

What he did not expect was to find Edna Walker sitting at her small dining table with a whited-out road sign in front of her. The fact that there were all sorts of nuts and gears surrounding the sign, as well as a green painted chain link bolted onto it, told Lloyd that he was, quite possibly, looking at the ‘little something’ she was working on. Yeah, he wasn’t exactly sure what he was getting, but he still got the feeling that he wasn’t supposed to see it just yet.

This was evident by the way that Ed grimaced at the sight of his still working wife. It clearly told that he had forgotten something important concerning Lloyd and whatever Edna was currently working on. Lloyd himself wasn’t sure if he was lucky or not that Edna hadn’t seen him. But, of course, his luck seemed to be elsewhere that day as Jay’s mother finally looked up a minute or two after Lloyd had entered the caravan.

“ Oh, Lloyd! I didn’t realise you’d get here so quickly.” She exclaimed before turning to scold her husband. “ Ed! Why didn’t you call out to me when he arrived? I thought I told you to let me know when he got here!”

“ Well, I, uh…” Ed stammered, struggling to find an excuse.

“ And what are you still doing holding that broken waffle iron? I though you’d have used it to stabilise that head you keep losing by now. Don’t you remember what I suggested earlier?”

Honestly, Lloyd had no clue what was going on. And he really did not want to think about what Mrs Walker could have meant. But at least he was glad that he wasn’t getting a broken waffle iron for his birthday.

Mr Walker, on the other hand, looked like he had only just realised that he was still holding a broken waffle iron in his hand. He was currently looking at the item like he was trying to figure out where it had come from. After a few seconds, though, he seemed to remember what he had been doing with it when Lloyd had effectively, albeit unintentionally, distracted him.

“ Ah, yes. The waffle iron.” He stated. “ I’m actually still trying to figure out how to attach it to the rotten security contraption. You know there’s been more than one time where I’ve asked myself why I decided to make a scrapyard sheriff security system.”

“ Yes, dear. I know.” Edna practically sighed.

“ Wait. You’re still rebuilding your security system?” Lloyd asked. At this point he was beginning to wonder just how much trouble he was in with the old couple.

“ Ya mean after that time you were startled by our old system? Yeah, we fixed that ages ago. Jay even helped us.” Ed admitted in such a nonchalant way it confused the green ninja.

“ So you’re not mad at me for essentially blowing up the security system?”

Edna could only smile when she heard that. And it was such a warm smile that, surprisingly, Lloyd found himself beginning to feel better about everything.

“ Oh, Lloyd, dear. We were never angry with you to begin with.” She explained. “ Ed and I both know that what happened was an accident.”

“ Now that’s for sure.” Ed added, his own face sporting a warm smile of its own. “ It was just lucky that I had already started making plans to upgrade the security system. That old thing was almost as old as Jay, don’t ya know. The only problem now is that I can’t get that darned robot sheriff’s head to stay on its flaming body.”

And just like that, Ed Walker dissolved into an angered, muttering mess. One that Lloyd had not expected nor that he wished to cross. Especially with a broken waffle iron clenched tightly in his fists. Thankfully, Edna ushered her husband back out of the caravan where he could work out his troubles outside. This left Lloyd alone with a slightly embarrassed Edna Walker.

“ Oh, I’m so sorry Ed’s turning into a grouch these days.” She apologised, turning back to her guest. “ It’s just, he’s been working on this thing for near on a month now, and there still hasn’t been any progress with keeping the robotic head of the sheriff on his body. He has to be near his twentieth attempt at attaching that thing.”

“ It’s quite alright, Mrs Walker.” Lloyd found himself saying. “ But we must get back to the monastery. As much as I know that Keo is in good care of my mother, I’m still worried about him.”

“ To be quite honest, Lloyd, I hadn’t expected you to be here so soon. Whatever vehicle you came on must have been quite fast. I figured I’d have just a little more time to finish off your present.”

“ You really shouldn’t have done anything for me.”

“ Nonsense. You’re a friend of my dear, sweet Jay’s. And that means that you’re practically family. So, as an honorary Walker, a present must be given for special occasions such as one’s birthday.”

Lloyd didn’t know what to say about that. He was honoured that the Walkers considered him a part of their family, just like he was sure the other ninja were honoured to be part of the family as well. But even as he felt the warmth that that knowledge wrapped him in, there was still the lingering warning in the back of his mind telling him not to let his guard down. Something must have shown on his face, though, because the next thing he knew, he was being dragged into the nearest chair.

“ Now, now, whatever’s the matter?” Jay’s mother asked, bringing Lloyd’s mind back into focus. “ You can talk to me about anything, you know, dearie. I won’t judge you.”

“ I don’t know, Mrs Walker.” Lloyd found himself sighing as he curled his hands into fists on his knees. “ It’s stupid.”

“ Stupidity is also a gift, but one mustn’t misuse it.”

Lloyd didn’t feel comforted about knowing that. He had done some pretty stupid things in his life, after all. Not to mention all the stupid things he had seen. So for him to accept it as a gift of some sort… yeah, he preferred to keep his silence on the matter.

Of course, that was also when he rediscovered just how loud silence could be. Just by his turn of gaze and lack of an explanation, Edna Walker seemed to immediately think the worse about what was going on in the green ninja’s mind. And, despite having been adopted, Lloyd now understood where Jay had gotten his amazing ability to jump to conclusions.

“ It’s not Jay, is it?” Edna asked, a surprisingly serious tone in her voice. “ Because if it is that boy, you can guarantee that there will be some stern words spoken to him.”

“ No, no, Mrs Walker. Everything is alright with Jay and the others. They’re honestly the best things that ever happened to me. It’s just… other things.”

“ This has something to do with that dastardly boarding school that was closed down, doesn’t it?”

“ I guess, in part.”

Before he knew what he was doing, Lloyd found himself spilling every little detail he could about his days at Darkley’s Boarding School For Bad Boys. He let loose every heart wrenching memory of the pranks and bullying that occurred in that school and all the especially evil things that were done to him on his birthday. And no matter how hard he tried to prevent it all from spilling out of him, he knew it was too late to turn back once he had started.

All the while, Edna listened. She listened to the broken boy sitting beside her, telling her of how he was always called a baby due to the fourth-annually occurrence of his actual birthday. She listened to how Lloyd would have any presents that were sent to him ripped from his grasp and destroyed before his very eyes. And not once did she do a single thing to interrupt the stream of words escaping from the boy’s mouth, knowing that he needed to say them.

Then Lloyd told her about the day that his father was destroyed while inside the cursed realm. A shiver ran down Edna’s spine at the memory of that time, all the ghosts roaming Ninjago for the few months that her son and his friends had spent fighting them. But to hear that Lloyd’s birthday was also the day that the Preeminent monster was destroyed, to hear that Lloyd had to lose his father again and this time permanently? There was no wonder the boy was so upset about his birthday.

And the pain only seemed to worsen as, the next year, Lloyd spent his birthday alone. At least, physically. With the other ninja and his mother all looking for Master Wu all across Ninjago, no one had been able to visit and physically be there for his birthday. Not even Pixal could be there for some reason known only to her. Of course, they all sent birthday wishes and presents through the mail and through phone calls, but Edna could only guess just how lonely young Lloyd had felt then.

The cherry on top seemed to be when Lloyd explained what had happened on his last birthday. Being lost in a dangerous jungle and then discovering the person you loved was the enemy the whole time. Realising that they had been using you for their own evil goals and thus having to fight them. Just hearing all of this was making Edna’s heart bleed for the boy sitting beside her.

In fact, the whole story was heart-breaking. All Edna could do was just sit with Lloyd and comfort him. She even wrapped him in a well needed hug. That was all Lloyd needed to realise that he had tears streaming down his face and into the cloth covering the older woman’s shoulder.

But he quickly found that he couldn’t pull away as easily as he wanted to. It was about a minute or two before he was able to pull away. And when he did, he was quick to try and remove any evidence of the fact that he had been crying. Mrs Walker gave no mind, however, and instead moved away once she was sure that Lloyd was ready for it.

“ I understand that you’ve been through a lot,” she soothed, “ and I understand that it must be scary to celebrate your birthday for fear of being hurt again, but you need to give the day another chance. Take it with a brave face and a bright smile and tell it that you’re not afraid to search for the happiness that your birthday will bring.”

Lloyd looked at her with something akin to that of a confused puppy. “ You really think today will bring happiness?”

“ Of course I do. Now I know this was intended for me, as Jay wrote me a little poem for my own birthday last month, bless him, but I think you could benefit from it as well. If memory serves me correctly, it went something like this:

“ Another year older,  
Another year wiser,  
Another year to enjoy  
Just being you.

“ Another year to remember,  
How special you are,  
And the love sent your way  
will always pull you through.

“ So remember to look forward,  
And see the beauty all around.  
Remember to listen  
To every song and every sound.

“ Remember that everything is awesome  
And the best is yet to come.  
So I wish you Happy Birthday  
And may it always be fun.”

* * *

Jay paced from one side of the room to the other. He knew the others were watching him. Each one of them, Master Wu included, had already tried to settle his nerves. Nya more times that he could count. But nothing they did seemed to be working. There were just too many worst-case scenarios concerning the arrival of the green ninja that were plaguing his mind and worsening his panic.

And yet, everything was well in order. Kai had returned safely with the presents (minus the actual bike that Jay and Nya had built for Lloyd). Thanks to the combined efforts of Pixal, Nya and Echo Zane, the place was practically sparkling it was that clean. Cole had helped them by making sure that everything was in its proper place for the party. Skylor’s character droids had delivered the snacks and drinks a short while ago (with Kai and Cole both having to hold jay back from destroying one of them because it frightened him somewhat). And Zane had not long finished making the golden cakes that Keo had wanted to share with them all for Lloyd’s birthday.

Really, all they were waiting for was the arrival of Misako and Lloyd. As planned, Kai had sent Misako a text message saying that everything was ready seconds after Zane had walked back into the room with the golden cakes. At the time, Misako had responded saying that Lloyd hadn’t yet returned from picking up Jay’s mother. That alone sent the lightning master into thinking the worst… until Pixal reminded him that the plan also included his mother keeping Lloyd for a little longer than was necessary. He was also reminded of the fact that that part of the plan had been his idea.

The next thing the other ninja knew was that Jay had quickly gotten himself riled up over the fact that he forgot things whenever he panicked. Poor Echo didn’t know how to react to Jay’s clear panic. And it was clear that he wanted to help Jay through whatever was going in his head. But it was also clear that he didn’t possess the knowledge of how to do so. That was when Master Wu had stepped up and managed to calm Jay out of his panicked anger.

Unfortunately, he was still panicking about the party.

Which was why Jay turned to pacing across the room. It was relatively quiet, and he could try and convince himself that everything was fine with the muttering that was accompanying it. Not to mention he was working off some of the nervous energy that he knew was building up inside of him. There was just one itty, bitty problem…

“ Jay, you’re making me dizzy. Will you come and sit down?” Cole’s voice finally penetrated the silence.

Beside him, Kai shook his head, blinking a little as he clearly tried to erase the smile that was struggling to form on his lips. “ Yeah, I swear you’re trying to hypnotise one of us with all that pacing you’re doing.”

“ Very funny, Kai.” Jay huffed in reply, easily seeing through the fire master’s plans. “ I’m pretty sure you can’t hypnotise someone just from pacing a room. Besides, the pacing is helping me think.”

“ About what? All the negative things that aren’t happening or going to happen?”

“ You don’t know that!”

Kai could only heave a sigh. Apparently, Jay’s current panic attack was a severe one. And he wasn’t the only one to notice. Finally unable to watch the scene before her continue on its path, Nya stood from her seat at the table and went over to Jay. The sudden presence of his girlfriend before him and placing her hands on his shoulders quickly forced the blue ninja to focus.

“ Jay. You need to calm down.” The water master said, a firmness to her tone despite the gentle nature of the words. “ I’ve told you numerous times before, there is no need to panic. Everything is fine. The snacks and drinks are ready at the food table. Skylor’s going to be here soon and the main meal is going to start cooking once Lloyd arrives. The music is waiting for when Lloyd walks into the room. All the easy to handle presents are accounted for and the bike is finished and waiting in the garage back home. You don’t need to worry about a thing. Sky’s even going to bring up the cake when its closer to the time so that it doesn’t melt.”

“ Nya. I am still picturing that pirate droid going rogue and coming to attack us, me specifically. Or Lloyd because, you know, green ninja.” Jay admitted.

“ But that’s not going to happen. Skylor told you that she serviced all her droids yesterday to make sure they didn’t go on the fritz today. So there is no need for all this panicking.”

Jay opened his mouth, about to protest about his panicking, but the words were stopped from rolling off his tongue thanks to the sound of Kai’s message tone going off. All eyes turned to the fire ninja as he unlocked his phone and read the new message. The next words that filled the room cancelled out any further arguments from forming.

“ That was Skylor.” He said. “ Lloyd’s here.”

Jay’s mind seemed to freeze over as the words entered his ears. Lloyd was here. This was it. There was no turning back now. In fact, there was a high chance that, in a few short minutes, he was going to be blown to smithereens for putting this all together. And he really didn’t feel like dying this day… or any other day if he was being truly honest.

But, at the same time, there was a small part of him that was trying to tell him that everything was going to be okay. It tried to reason that Lloyd was going to appreciate what had been done for him just as Zane had done a couple of months prior. And, as he looked into Nya’s eyes in an attempt to calm himself, Jay found that she was trying to send him that same message: everything was going to be alright.

He had to accept things, then. He couldn’t do anything else, anyway. Lloyd was somewhere on the other side of the door. With a sigh, followed by a deep breath, the lightning master was finally able to calm his nerves and start forming a smile across his lips.

“ Are you sure Kai said he needed help up here?” Lloyd’s voice came through the door.

“ Yeah. The weredroid’s arm somehow fell off.” Skylor’s voice replied.

“ And you’re asking me to fix it? What about Jay or Nya? Or even Zane or Pixal?”

“ I can’t get on to any of them. I only managed to get onto you because of your mother. Also, I think Kai was the one who broke my droid and I may need you to stop me from killing him.”

“ It wouldn’t surprise me if he did break it, though. Aside from the few exceptions, Kai still doesn’t trust technology.”

“ Tell me about it.”

Kai’s smile slowly drained from his face. He knew Skylor was good at lying (sometimes a little too good, if he was being honest), but did she have to come up with that excuse to get Lloyd up here? There were plenty of other excuses she could have made, after all. Ones that didn’t involve him possibly destroying things and having Lloyd fix his ‘mess’.

Then again, this was a surprise party. Any mention at all about the others being there would have gotten the kid even more suspicious than he probably already was. So Skylor probably said the first thing that came to mind… no matter how much he was currently disliking it. Kai figured he’d have to question his girlfriend over her choices later, when they were alone. For now, he had to deal with the threatening look Nya was sending his way, daring him to so much as squeak so that she could kill him for ruining the surprise.

He didn’t. To be honest, he didn’t have time. Before anyone could even open their mouths to threaten him, the door to the party room was being opened. Kai and Nya both hurried to slip another smile on their faces as Lloyd slowly emerged from the hallway between both his mother and Skylor.

“ Okay, Kai. What did you d-” Lloyd started as he entered the room, only to stop midsentence as his eyes landed on the sight before him.

“ Happy birthday, Lloyd.” Those in the room chorused a few seconds later.

Lloyd remained quiet, only moving to let his mother into the party room. Everyone had to wait with bated breath as his eyes scanned his surroundings. They all had to watch as he looked slowly from the presents to the party snacks, then over to the table that everyone was either sitting or standing around. Jay even found himself praying that he wasn’t about to die for putting this all together. Yet no one could tell what the green ninja was thinking about the situation he had found himself in.

Finally, after what felt like hours of tense waiting, the corner of Lloyd’s mouth twirked into a smile as he huffed out a short laugh.

“ At least you didn’t yell ‘surprise’.” He said, sending relief through everyone around him.

“ So you’re not going to kill me?” Jay asked tentatively, still panicky about the situation.

“ Why would I do that?”

“ Because I planned a surprise birthday party for you despite knowing you don’t like celebrating your birthday.”

“ He’s been stressing over all this for weeks.” Nya explained upon witnessing Lloyd’s still confused look.

Cole passed by them at that point, on his way to the sound system. As he did, he quickly added a ‘months even’ to the end of Nya’s words.

“ Of course he was stressing.” Lloyd sighed.

“ What’s that supposed to mean?” Jay squeaked.

“ It means, you panicking over things isn’t too surprising, Jay.” Kai replied, arriving at their little group.

“ Well, I’m sorry I like to make sure things are perfect.”

The smile on Lloyd’s face deepened. “ Well, I have to admit, you guys had me suspicious today, especially around lunch time when none of you had returned to the monastery. But before then, I had no clue. So you can mark that as a success. But if you really want to thank someone, Jay, it would have to be your mother. She kind of told me I needed to stop living in the past with all the negativity that is wrapped up in it.”

As soon as Kai heard that, he immediately went into big brother mode. “ Is everything okay?”

“ Yeah, everything’s fine. I’ll… I’ll tell you all about it when we get back to the monastery. I promise. For now, let’s just enjoy the party.”

“ If you’re sure.”

“ I’m sure. Wouldn’t want the negativity to ruin the mood, after all.”

That was the moment that Cole turned on the music. And all eyes turned to him as soon as the first lyrics to ‘Everything is AWESOME’ reached their ears. It probably didn’t help that the song happened to be one of Jay’s favourite songs. In fact, it was a wonder that no one had turned to Jay because it was one of his favourites. Then again, it was common knowledge that Cole had been tasked with music preparations.

As it was, the earth master was looking a little sheepish at the sudden attention he was receiving because of the choice of song. In all honesty, thanks in part to Kai’s earlier reaction to the playlist, he shouldn’t have been too surprised by the sudden attention. He had mixed some of Jay’s upbeat songs into the playlist to liven things up. But he had also put the playlist on shuffle. It had just been pure luck that all the songs that played during set up happened to be songs that Lloyd liked listening to. This was the first of Jay’s to play that night.

“ What? I needed to liven up the playlist a little.” The black ninja admitted.

Jay merely shrugged his shoulders, not worried in the least that some of his songs had made it into the playlist. “ I guess there’s going to be surprises for everyone, today.”

“ You mean, you don’t actually know what songs are on the playlist for today?” Kai asked, turning to look at the blue ninja.

“ I left it up to Cole. You know that. But to answer your question, no. I did not know that he planned on putting some of my songs into the playlist. Lloyd’s songs, yes. But not mine. I wonder what other songs Cole added to the list.”

It was funny how fast Jay could bounce back from his panic once he was sure that there was nothing to fear from. And to come back curious about what other songs his best friend had added to a playlist for Lloyd’s birthday was one of the more surprising bounce backs he did. But even though it took a few seconds for the other ninja to accept the sudden change within their friend, they welcomed it with open arms.

Then again, Lloyd (at least) didn’t get much time to dwell on it as he was quickly kidnapped by an excited Echo Zane and led over to where the presents were being kept. Said presents ranged in size, from small boxes the size of your hand to a thin, rectangular box that looked suspiciously like one of Kai’s sword boxes. It made the green ninja curious as to what he had gotten. But he couldn’t dwell on the thought long due to the fact that Echo seemed more focussed on a certain little box with a green ribbon than anything else.

Behind him, Lloyd could almost sense that Cole was too keen on moving from the sound system just yet. To be honest, Cole was more interested in what it was that the copper android was doing with their friend. And the excited smile that Echo had on his features seemed to be spreading because a similar one was finding its way onto his face as he watched what was happening.

It was cute to watch as Echo eagerly presented Lloyd with the small box. But it was clear that he was being super cautious of how he passed it to the birthday boy. And though something in the back of Cole’s mind questioned exactly when Lloyd would have liked to open his presents (he would personally go for after he had gotten to eat), Lloyd didn’t seem to mind one bit.

In fact, Lloyd mimicked Echo Zane’s cautious attitude when he took the presented gift. If the copper android was taking care in passing the little box, there must have been something either valuable or else fragile within it confines. Besides, even if he wanted to open the presents a little later, Lloyd couldn’t say no to the look of pure joy on Echo’s face as he held the box safely in his hands.

“ I’m guessing this one is from you, Echo?” the green ninja asked.

Echo’s head bounced up and down so fast in affirmation that Lloyd feared it was going to fall off in front of him. “ Yes, it is. But you have to be careful with it so that it doesn’t break.”

Lloyd kept that bit of information in mind as he carefully untied the ribbon and opened the box. Resting inside on a bed of padded satin was a jade statue of a dragon coiled up in a sitting position and holding a giant jade pearl. The dragon itself had an elongated body and it held the pearl in its front paws while sitting on its hind paws. Its wings were tucked behind its back while its muzzle was dipped towards its treasure. But just by looking at it, Lloyd had a feeling that it had cost a pretty penny regardless of its size.

“ I hope you like it.” Echo Zane said, trying to hide the nervous energy that was evident in his voice.

“ Echo, this is amazing. Thank you.” Lloyd said, looking up at the copper android with a massive smile on his face.

Echo simply beamed at the words. But before he knew it, words were escaping his mouth in his barely contained excitement.

“ I saw it on the way to see Mr Borg and had to get it for you. Although, my brother did have to help me a little with getting it. I am going to have to do something to thank him for helping me.”

“ Well, thank you again. I think I have the perfect spot for it, too. Right on my bedside table. But I think I’ll open the other presents after dinner.”

The copper android seemed happy with that and went off to find his brother. Cole, meanwhile, stepped over to Lloyd.

“ I think you’ve made his day, you know that.” He said.

“ Apparently. But I’m not opening any more presents until after we eat. So you better not be trying to sneak anything on me.” Lloyd replied.

“ Lloyd, you were the prankster. Jay’s funny, sure, but you were always the prankster. And I’m willing to bet you still are deep down. But right now… why don’t we go mingle while we wait for dinner to come up?”

Lloyd was about to follow Cole’s idea when a thought came to him. And, looking about the room, that thought seemed to nag at his brain. After all, as he watched Skylor and Kai talking about something off to the side of the party, he couldn’t help but notice that the only androids in the room were Pixal and the Zanes. Gently, he placed the dragon statue back in its box and the box back on the table before turning to face Cole.

“ Okay, what’s wrong?” the earth master asked.

“ Who said anything was wrong?” Lloyd replied.

“ You have that look on your face that clearly says that something’s on your mind. Now spill.”

The ninja leader heaved a sigh, mentally telling himself that he needed to learn to control his facial expressions better. Still, his thoughts managed to escape him. “ Was there even anything wrong with Skylor’s waiter droids or was that just to get me up here?”

“ In truth, it was probably just to get you up here. But we did almost have a problem with one of the droids.” Cole admitted.

“ The weredroid?”

“ No, actually. It was the pirate droid. Jay’s convinced it’s out to get him. I’d say it’s his PTSD speaking, though, because his fears also made him think that it would try and kidnap you if it did end up going on the fritz. Skylor said she’d put it away until after Jay leaves. Save anything bad happening. To it or Jay.”

“ That sounds like a good idea.”

“ What sounds like a good idea?” Nya asked as she made her way over to the two by the music table.

Both Cole and Lloyd tuned to welcome her into their conversation.

“ Just talking about what happened with Jay and the pirate droid.” Cole explained.

“ Yeah, that was fun getting Jay to not destroy that thing.” Nya shook her head at the memory. “ But what are you two doing over here away from everyone?”

“ Echo dragged me over here to make sure I got his birthday present.” Lloyd replied.

“ Oh, whatcha get?”

“ A little dragon statue.” And Lloyd carefully took in hand the dragon’s boz to show off the little statue that was housed inside.

The water ninja was instantly awed by the craftsmanship of the little statue, not to mention with the way it shone in the light. Cole even marvelled at the fact that it was real jade and wondered at just how much it had cost the Zanes to get it. Of course, the black ninja didn’t question the pricing out loud, but it was clearly there… especially when that same question was on Lloyd’s and Nya’s minds as well.

But things didn’t last long thanks to Jay arriving at that moment with a mouth full of Golden Cake.

“ Oh man, you guys have got to try these things.” He was saying. “ I don’t know if it’s because Zane made them or what, but it all seems to work. It’s really sweet though. In a good way.”

At the mention of the word ‘sweet’, Lloyd started thinking again. Well, it was more remembering a conversation from earlier in the day when he and Keo had been talking before lunch. During that conversation, he remembered, the injured boy had opened up a little more about his life, including the fact that his father shared the same birthday as him. He also remembered that Keo’s family celebrated with sweet cakes known as Golden Cakes. But none of the others could have known about Golden Cakes, least of all been able to make them… right?

This time it was Jay who noticed the confused look on Lloyd’s face.

“ Is everything okay, Lloyd?” he asked once he had swallowed his mouthful.

“ You’re not talking about Golden Cakes, are you?” the green ninja replied with a question of his own.

“ Yeah, why?”

“ How could you know about Golden Cakes? I mean, Keo told me about them when he first asked me if it was my birthday. And I’m pretty sure none of you were around for that conversation. Unless… you didn’t put a hidden microphone or something in Keo’s room, did you Cole?”

Cole turned to face his younger brother, a look of surprise on his face. “ What? No! Why would I do that?”

“ You’re almost as over protective of Keo as Kai is to Nya and I.”

All Nya and Jay could do was nod their heads in confirmation to what Lloyd was saying. Seeing this, Cole knew he had no argument to fight against them with. So he huffed and pouted at them in a most mature way. But none of them noticed that they were about to gain a fifth member to their little group.

“ Actually, there is a simple explanation for that, my friend.”

At the sound of Zane’s voice, all eyes turned to face the nindroid who was bringing over a plate of something. Within seconds, the contents of the plate was identifiable as three Golden Cakes similar to the one Jay was currently munching on. Cole and Nya immediately took one each of the offered treats while Lloyd was a little more hesitant. Although, that may have been thanks to his confusion.

“ When you called me earlier and handed the phone to Keo, he told me about Golden Cakes and what they meant to him and his family.” Zane explained. “ At the time, I managed to convince him to stay at the monastery as he wanted to join in the festivities as well. But it was made with compromise; he would stay at the monastery only if I made golden cakes and shared them around for him. I promised I’d leave some for him as well. But these golden cakes are Keo’s birthday present to you, Lloyd.”

Hearing that, Lloyd couldn’t help but be stunned. Even though the boy had only just found out that it was his birthday, he had already figured out a birthday present for him. And to have that present be something so close to him, something shared within his own family during the same time period, there was no doubt that Lloyd was honoured by the gesture.

“ I’m honoured. Really I am. Especially knowing the story he shared with me about them.” He said, finally taking the final golden cake while confusing Cole, Jay and Nya in the process. “ But how did you get the recipe to make these? Even better, _when_ did you get the recipe?”

“ Keo managed to get his mother’s family cookbook from the farmhouse before he left. The recipe for golden cakes was in that book along with other, interesting recipes I am guessing were written in by his father. When you left the monastery to go pick up Mrs Walker, I was able to have a look at the cookbook and submit to memory all the steps and ingredients needed to make the golden cakes. And as soon as I had that, I was back here in Ninjago City retrieving the ingredients and making the cakes. You were none the wiser.”

Lloyd looked at the golden cake he held in his hand, noting its sticky texture, before turning a suspicious gaze to the friends that surrounded him. And he started with Zane slowly followed by Jay, Nya and Cole.

“ You’re all little sneaks, you know that?” he concluded.

All he got in reply were massive smiles from all four of them.

“ What can I say? We’re ninja. We’re supposed to be sneaky.” Jay stated happily.

Cole’s smile, however, found itself turning into a smirk. “ Key words. ‘Supposed to be’.”

Jay pouted. Even with the sweetness of the golden cakes, you couldn’t hide the slightly betrayed look on his face. But all that did was start a friendly argument between the black and blue ninja. The other three ninja could only watch on with amusement. After all, it wouldn’t be them if there wasn’t some kind of friendly banter occurring between them during happier times.

During the playful showdown, Lloyd finally took a bite out of his golden cake. And immediately his sweet tooth was in heaven. Keo had said there was honey in the recipe, but he never expected it to be moist as well. And the added corn kernels gave the cake a surprising yet soft crunch to it. There was no denying that it was good.

What was surprising was that Nya seemed to enjoy the golden cakes. Usually, the water ninja wouldn’t dare be seen eating honey if she could help it. Something about having gotten sick from it as a kid. But now it looked like Nya didn’t seem to care about that fact at all.

Even Kai seemed surprised to see his little sister enjoying something that clearly had honey inside it. He had followed Zane in joining the group, along with Pixal and Echo, once Skylor had to leave to make sure the meals were being prepared. And upon their arrival, conversations seemed to bloom… mainly on how good the golden cakes tasted.

Although, Zane had to ban any more golden cakes being consumed before dinner had properly arrived.

But it was Echo Zane who told Nya that the golden cakes contained honey. The reaction to that was not something anyone expected. True, there was no sudden attempt to get the taste out of her mouth or throw what she had in the bin. But the wide-eyed surprise that was clearly on Nya’s face was enough to get the others nodding in confirmation to what had been said. That was when the water ninja shrugged off the discovery and continued to eat her golden cake.

It was about ten minutes after that discovery that Skylor returned with news on dinner being served. Everyone quickly made their way over to their seats at the table. But Lloyd quickly found himself sitting at the head of the table. And that was somewhat off-putting.

Usually, the head of the table belonged to Master Wu. Having to take that honour, even just for his birthday, was not something the green ninja was used to. Even after all those times when he was placed at the centre of the table during his victory tour after the first defeat of the Overlord. It still needed getting used to.

But there was no time for Lloyd to focus too much on where he had been placed at the table. About two seconds after he had sat down, five of the six droids that Skylor owned made their way into the party room. Each droid carried in a specific meal that was placed in front of a specific guest. And Lloyd couldn’t help but notice that each meal just so happened to be a favourite from the Noodle House. It honestly explained why Skylor had asked him if she ‘should prepare his usual’ when he had entered.

And yet, seeing Cole’s growing excitement as the food was brought in made the green ninja wonder which dish he had chosen for his meal. After all, even with what happened during the Tournament of Elements, most of the dishes on the menu were still Cole’s favourites. Lloyd’s question was answered when the biggest bowl of moo shoo wushu he had ever seen was placed in front of the earth master.

“ You gonna have room for all that and still get in some cake, Cole?” Kai asked after seeing the size of the meal.

“ Do you not have faith in me?” Cole asked, slightly offended.

“ Oh, I’m sure you’ll pack it in. I’m just thinking of how small a slice of cake you’ll need.”

Jay seemed to click on to what the fire master was teasing their friend about as he instantly smiled. “ It might just have to be a sliver because of that ‘my body is a temple’ thing he has going on.”

“ For your information, I decided I needed to enjoy the simple things in life after we returned to Ninjago in time to save it.” Cole insisted.

“ You mean, you gave in to temptation. I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist cake.”

“ Especially when it’s one made by Zane with all your favourite flavours.” Kai continued.

Cole sourly turned to face his meal. He knew he was being teased. It was obvious in the tone of voice. But did they have to bring that up again now? Just because he gave up cake while everyone was still searching for Master Wu, doesn’t mean they could tease him about it. But it was as he looked into his bowl of moo shoo wushu that he remembered something important about Lloyd’s birthday cake.

“ Unfortunately, this birthday cake wasn’t made by Zane.” He said, looking back up at Kai and Jay with a smile.

“ It’s not?” Lloyd asked, even as his plate of spicy pork noodles was placed in front of him by the weredroid.

Zane shook his head with a sad look on his face. “ With everything going on today, I did not have enough time to make your birthday cake, Lloyd. I’m sorry. The only reason why I was able to make the golden cakes was because there were fairly quick and easy to make. But I assure you, you will not be disappointed with the cake we did get you.”

That sent forth many more questions buzzing around in Lloyd’s brain. But, of course, he knew he wouldn’t be getting any answers to them any time soon. So he accepted that he was going to have to wait and, once everyone’s meals and drinks were in front of them, focussed on what he had to say next.

“ Well, uh, thank you, I guess.” He started. “ I honestly didn’t expect you guys to be planning a surprise party for my birthday. I probably would have spent it moping in my bedroom again.”

“ We know.” A number of replies echoed over the table.

“ And we don’t like seeing you moping about.” Kai admitted. “ It hurts us to see you hurting and not knowing what to do about it.”

“ Which is why I knew I had to do something for you, Lloyd.” Jay added.

Lloyd smiled. “ And that’s why I’m saying thank you. To all of you, to Keo and to your mother, Jay. Especially to your mother. As much as you and Uncle Wu have tried to talk to me about it, Mum, I guess I needed someone outside the family to tell me everything was going to be okay. And no, I do not wish to poison this party with the negativity behind why I avoided my birthday just yet. I’ll explain that when we get back to the monastery. So, yeah. Thank you for doing this. I guess, after everything that’s happened, I needed some smiles. But for now, dig in and enjoy.”

“ To Lloyd!” Cole called out, raising his glass.

“ Happy Birthday!” The room practically erupted.

The smile on Lloyd’s face grew. Not long after that, the sound of cutlery chinking against plates and bowls took the place of the excited call. That was soon joined by the low rumble of talk coming from those around the table. Misako took that time to reach over and place her hand over her son’s, forcing Lloyd to look up at her.

“ You did good, Lloyd. I’m proud of you.” She said quietly. “ You managed to overcome that hurdle you were staring down.”

“ It just took me hearing a poem Jay wrote to his mother for her birthday to get me to realise that I needed to let go of all the pain, though.” Her son admitted.

“ That does not matter. What does is you accepting that pain, learning from that pain and knowing when to have fun even with that pain still inside of you.” His uncle spoke up, also smiling at Lloyd. “ You can only go up from here.”

With his uncle’s words in mind, Lloyd started on his meal. And he made sure to enjoy every bite. Even those that occurred while he was talking with his friends. Although Kai did try to get out of him why he hated his birthday. That question was, once again, ignored in favour of questioning Cole’s playlist making skills when yet another of Jay’s motivational songs played over the speakers.

Once dinner was over, and while everyone waited for the food to go down before bringing out the cake, Lloyd headed back to the present table, the others in tow. This time, he intended to open more than one present. But, of course, there were others who wanted to know what it was that Echo Zane had gotten for him. So, at Kai’s insistence, he showed off the little jade dragon, making Echo feel very proud in the process.

The first unwrapped gift Lloyd reached for was another box, although this one was about as tall as his forearm and hand combined were long. And if the card didn’t state who the present was from, the wrapping paper most certainly did. It was, after all, the only present wrapped in blue wrapping that was littered with cupcakes and the occasional ‘Happy Birthday’ managing to peak through.

“ Thanks Cole.” Lloyd said after reading the card, which also had a massive birthday cake on the front of it.

“ I just hope you like it.” Cole replied. “ I got it for you months ago.”

That piqued Lloyd’s interest. Carefully tearing open the wrapping paper and opening the plain cardboard box it was wrapped around, the birthday boy found himself pulling out a figure statue. Only this figure statue was something that he’d be holding in his hands.

It was a limited edition, PVC, finely-textured figure of Starfarers Comic series hero, Fritz Donnegan, fighting off the Kamreghan Creature of the Kamreghan Plains. The scene itself came from issue fifteen of the comic series and was replicated in the first Starfarers film. In fact, Lloyd remembered that only fifty of these statues were made in all of Ninjago to mark the release of that film.

“ How?” Lloyd asked, his voice barely going above a whisper. “ Only fifty of these were ever made. This is, like, super rare.”

“ I was just lucky I guess.” Cole replied. “ If I remember correctly, I was in a battle with three other people for it.”

“ Thank you. It is pretty awesome to get.”

Of course, Kai couldn’t help but huff to himself at the imagined reaction he would get. In his mind, nothing could beat getting something that was Starfarer related for the Starfarer fan. Then again, he couldn’t deny the fact that he was a little jealous himself.

It just so happened that Lloyd heard him. And because he heard Kai’s huff, he immediately went for the wooden box that was tied with gold ribbon. It was a simple wooden box with gold corners and gold trimming. The Smith family logo was also burned into the centre of the lid, a clear indication that the present was from Kai.

“ You couldn’t even wrap it?” Lloyd heard Nya hiss towards her brother.

“ Give me a break.” Kai whispered in reply. “ I only finished it last night. I had just enough time to get the ribbon on it before Lloyd woke up and I had to leave. Not to mention that Skylor’s almost as tough as Wu when it comes to work.”

“ You do realise I’m standing right next to you, right Kai?” Skylor pointed out, though it was with a smile in her voice. Not too far from them Master Wu was also smiling, but he said nothing.

Lloyd could only shake his head at what he was hearing before turning his focus on the gift he had in front of him. At least Kai managed to get a card for the gift, which he quickly read before taking the ribbon off and opening the case. Inside rested and ornately decorated sword and scabbard, both coloured a dark green with gold accents. The sword’s hilt was also decorated with black cord, possibly for a better and more comfortable grip, that separated the green felt from the gold.

Carefully, Lloyd took the sword from the case and unsheathed it. The resounding hiss of metal as the blade emerged brought a smile to the boy’s face. And the simple design on the blade itself made the smile broaden. The blade was shaped like a typical dadao blade, with a slight curve that ended in a broad, almost rectangular tip. Lloyd’s name was engraved in gold at the base of the blade while the fuller surrounding the letters looked to be made out of green jade.

“ I… couldn’t think of what else to get you.” Kai admitted as Lloyd gave a quick test swing of his new sword before placing it back in its scabbard.

“ It’s perfect. Balance is great and everything. I will be using this, Kai. Thank you.” Lloyd replied.

The next few gifts Lloyd received were all quite interesting in their own rights. Skylor must have been collaborating with Kai as she had gotten him a weapons care kit. That was going to come in very handy considering it was almost time for Lloyd to get a new kit to replace his current one. His mother got him some new clothes and a CD of one of the bands he liked to listen to. Apparently, she wanted to see him in some nicer clothes than what was currently in his wardrobe. And trust his uncle to find a board game that specifically tested one’s memories about how a ninja should perform in the field and under the cover of darkness.

But it was Zane’s present that intrigued Lloyd the most. It was, essentially, a big square box that sounded like it had blocks of wood in it when he moved it. And, after unwrapping it, Lloyd’s assumption turned out to be correct. Zane had gifted him a starter kit to whittling.

Upon seeing his confusion, Zane explained. “ I remember you saying once that you were interested in learning how to carve wooden objects of your own. We were at a festival at the time and you had commented on some of the merchandise in a woodcarver’s stall. I thought that you would like to try out whittling as something to do in your spare time.”

“ I… um, wow. I don’t even remember that day.” Lloyd admitted. “ But thank you. Hopefully I can get to learning sooner rather than later.”

“ In that case, I hope that my birthday gift will be able to help you learn a few tricks of the trade, as they say.” Pixal spoke up.

This prompted Lloyd to pick up the only relatively rectangular present that was left unwrapped. There seemed to be a little bit of weight to the gift, although its slightly odd shape was a little intriguing. Clearly something small was resting on top of a slightly larger object underneath the rainbow starred paper. Carefully, he revealed two books; one, a reading novel about a boy from an ancient tribe who was raised by wild animals, the other, a beginner’s guide to whittling. Lloyd knew the beginner’s guide would come in handing… but he also couldn’t wait to start reading his new book.

He’d have to hurry and finish the book he was currently reading.

“ Thank you for this, Pixal. I know the beginner’s guide will come in handy. But, seriously, have you people been collaborating with each other?” Lloyd asked.

Nya and Jay merely looked at each other, smiles on their faces. But both Skylor and Pixal admitted to knowing what their respective boyfriends were getting the green ninja for his birthday. That would explain the complimentary gifts he received from both couples.

Finally, Lloyd came to the last gift. It was a small box, just a little larger than the box Echo’s jade dragon was sitting in. And it came from both Nya and Jay, as stated by the card, their looks and the process of elimination. But what confused the green ninja as he opened the lid of the box was that he was looking at a set of keys with his animal symbol made into a keychain.

“ Uh…” He started.

“ Open the piece of paper.” Jay commanded eagerly.

Not knowing what else to do, Lloyd took out and unfolded the piece of paper he only just realised was under the set of keys. The picture he was greeted with was of a black, green and gold motorcycle. It looked to be of simple design in the sense that he was not equipped with any visible weapons. But that didn’t matter. What it did have was what looked like a black luggage rack tucked under the seat. That same seat was coloured black along with the thick band that broke up the green and gold trimmed outer casing of the rest of the bike. Even his animal symbol made a return on the vehicle’s side.

“ Do you like it?” Jay asked eagerly.

“ Well… the picture looks great. Although I’m not entirely sure what it has to do with the keys.” Lloyd admitted.

Nya actually facepalmed as he spoke, prompting Lloyd to wonder if he had said the wrong thing. Jay even started laughing. It was clear to everyone else that Lloyd’s brain wasn’t working as well as it should have been. And they all found that slightly amusing.

“ You really don’t understand why we would give you a set of keys and show you a picture of a motorcycle?” The water ninja asked, hoping to jolt her little brother’s brain into working.

“ The only thing I can think of is that you got me…”

“ Oh ho ho. We did not buy that beauty. We made her.” Jay amended quickly.

“ To elaborate, Jay and I worked together to make you a new motorcycle.” Nya explained. “ It’s nothing fancy like a battle bike or anything. Just a spruced up ride around bike.”

“ Although, if you were to use your energy powers on this bike, I’m sure you’ll find yourself going faster than an average motorbike.” Jay smiled before gaining a sheepish look and scratching at the back of his neck. “ I may have gotten that idea from my _Desert Lightning.”_

“ We couldn’t get it here in person because I doubt Skylor would have liked us trying to fit a motorcycle into her party room.”

“ You can say that again.” Skylor mumbled, though it was with an amused smile.

Nya continued as if she wasn’t interrupted. “ So we figured taking a picture was better. Once we get back to the monastery, I’d be more than happy to take the tarp off the _Freedom Cycle_ for you.”

“ _Freedom Cycle?”_ Lloyd found himself asking.

“ It’s what Jay named the bike. It was originally a work in progress name but it kind of stuck.”

The gleam in Lloyd’s eyes was enough to tell all that he was quite pleased with his gift. And he was definitely excited about seeing his new motorbike in person for the first time. Heck, he was ready to take it for a spin as soon as the tarp was off despite it still being in the monastery. But apparently his mother and uncle both had other plans and quickly turned down any night-time rides. According to them, if Lloyd was going to do any test driving, he’d have to do it the next day.

Yes, Lloyd was a little disappointed at that, but it was quickly forgotten when Skylor excused herself once more from the party. And it wasn’t hard to guess where she had gone once it was realised that her party droids had already cleared the table of the dinner dishes. The droids had even laid down desert dishes while the presents were being opened.

While they waited, Lloyd found himself showing off the picture of the bike. So what if he was a little slow to realise that she now owned a new motorcycle. It didn’t stop him from being excited about the new addition to his rather small collection of vehicles. And too bad if he was being annoying about it. The others all seemed to love that he was enjoying his birthday, anyway.

Yeah, okay. Maybe Mrs Walker had been right to say that he should enjoy what the day brings instead of wallowing in the past… or was that Master Wu who had said that?

Lloyd couldn’t dwell on his thoughts for long, though, because Skylor seen returned with his birthday cake in hand. And was a cake it was. Although it was a simple round cake, you could not miss the green icing with the spots and swirls of coloured icing to represent each of the other ninja. Once the cake was in front of him, Lloyd could easily make out the words ‘Happy Birthday’ writing in gold icing underneath the golden image of his animal symbol.

He wasn’t sure, but the green ninja had a feeling that his birthday party had been colour coordinated as well. Between decorations, presents and now cake, he didn’t know what to think.

And once Lloyd realised that everyone had stopped singing the birthday song and he made the first cut into the cake, he discovered that the cake in front of him was made out of ice cream. Bubble-gum flavoured ice cream, if the remnants on the knife and the smell were anything to go by. And that could only mean that the cake had come from only one place.

“ This came from _Zeezee Bear’s_ , didn’t it?” He asked his nearest team member.

“ How do you know that? You haven’t even tasted it yet.” Kai asked.

Cole’s laughter instantly brought all attention to him. “ Come on, Kai. This is Lloyd we’re talking about. He may have gotten older, but he still knows his sweets. Not to mention he has pretty keen senses.”

“ Kind of reminds me of someone else we know, only they have a love affair with cake.” Nya smirked.

“ Well, I was his teacher once upon a time. I must have passed on some of my knowledge.”

Lloyd chose not to involve himself in the chaos that followed that statement. He had a perfectly delicious slice of ice cream cake that was started to melt onto his plate. And he did not want to waste any of it.

Unfortunately, his thoughts were running amok again. This time on how well the day had turned out. And with Jay fully involved with the chaos sprouting around him, there was no way that Lloyd was able to thank him for making it all happen. Maybe, once things had settled down and everyone was back home at the monastery, he’d get his chance.

* * *

Jay was sitting at his desk, pen to his mouth in thought as he tried to figure out what he was going to do for Nya’s birthday. After returning to the monastery and revealing the _Freedom Cycle_ to Lloyd, he had had to leave again to make sure his mother had gotten home safely. And once he had gotten back, almost everyone had retired to their bedrooms.

His brain still buzzing from the activities of the day, he had quickly gotten himself ready for bed before stopping at his desk and started to think up a new birthday plan. After all, there were only three weeks until Nya’s birthday arrived. Thing was, he had not been able to get any ideas out of his mind. And he had been staring at a blank piece of paper for almost fifteen minutes now.

Well, he did have one thing in mind, but that was more of a present than anything else. That and Kai would most likely kill him if he ever found out what that thing was.

Regardless, the piece of paper he had titled ‘Nya’s Birthday Plans’ remained staring blankly up at him, not helping him in the slightest in figuring out what to do. Even worse was the fact that Nya had specifically requested no surprise parties. So that left him raking his brain for what to do. Which led him to jumping out of his seat in fright at the sound of someone knocking on his door.

“ Come in.” He called softly so as not to disturb Cole who was asleep in the next room.

To his surprise, Lloyd walked in. “ Hey, Jay. Whatcha doing?”

“ Just trying to figure out what to do for Nya’s birthday.”

“ You’re really invested in birthday parties this year, aren’t you?”

It was true. He was focusing a lot on everyone’s birthdays. “ Guess I just wanted everyone to celebrate the little things in life and not just some major battle victory. I don’t know.”

“ Well, whatever the case, I just wanted to say thank you.”

That caught Jay’s full attention. With a curious expression on his face, he turned to his young leader. But he remained silent as he waited for an explanation that he was sure was coming.

Lloyd sat down on the edge of the blue ninja’s bed before he explained himself. “ You weren’t here when I told the others why I usually avoided my birthday. The truth is, I was bullied a lot back at Darkley’s because of the day I was born. Things just got worse when my birthday happened to be the same day that Nya gained her true potential and destroyed the Cursed Realm. And then last year when Harumi revealed herself to be the Quiet One…”

“ That was your birthday too?” Jay’s words were barely above a whisper.

Lloyd could only nod his head in confirmation.

“ Oh man, if I’d have known…”

“ That’s why I came to thank you, Jay.” Lloyd quickly cut in. “ It took you planning all this for me to realise that I needed to put the past behind me. Well, you and your mum. It was that birthday poem that you sent her for her birthday that got me thinking, after all.”

“ She read you the poem?” Jay could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks.

“ Don’t get me wrong, Jay. I mean it when I say it helped. Specifically one line.”

“ And that was?”

The smile that emerged on Lloyd’s lips were soft as he spoke. “ ‘Remember that everything is awesome’. And you were right. Especially today. Everything turned out awesome. So thank you for making me realise that a birthday can still be happy despite any pain that happened in the past.”

“ Well… you’re welcome.” Jay couldn’t help but share the contagious smile that graced his friend’s face. “ If ever you need a pick me up party, you know who to call.”

“ Totally. Oh, and, uh… next time, please don’t do another surprise party. I like to know what I’m getting myself into.”

“ Sure thing, Lloyd. Sure thing.”


End file.
